


To Kill Your Darlings

by NoteInABottle



Series: Warehouse AU [1]
Category: Durarara!!
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Prison, Alternate Universe - Yakuza, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Bruises, Childhood Friends, Grinding, Human Experimentation, Immortality, Love Confessions, M/M, Making Out, Memories, Minor Violence, Misunderstandings, Mutual Pining, Revenge, Self-Hatred, Sex, Torture, Unresolved Sexual Tension
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-23
Updated: 2019-06-24
Packaged: 2020-03-13 04:23:39
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 10
Words: 35,131
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18933328
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NoteInABottle/pseuds/NoteInABottle
Summary: There was a man glaring at him from the opposite side of the prison common room. This was Shizuo Heiwajima, a legend from Izaya's high school days, someone who had hated him, someone who he had loved, someone who was supposed to be dead, appearing like a ghost that had come back to haunt him.Two years ago, Izaya kicked off his informant career by framing Shizuo and sending him to prison. Now, alone and betrayed, with nothing in the world to his name, Izaya must deal with the consequences.





	1. Death Row

The iron doors clanged shut behind Izaya, and his head filled with the metallic ring until he could no longer think. He faced two grim-looking guards, each with tattooed and ugly faces. They barely glanced at him.

"Take off your clothes," one said.

Izaya fingered the sleeve of his black shirt, and briefly considered talking. Talking had always gotten him out of these situations before.

A baton struck him in the ribs, doubling him over. He gasped but could get no air. In the next moment, two pairs of hands seized him and began to methodically strip him of his shirt, belt, pants, everything. In a minute, he stood naked and shivering on the cold floor. A red welt stood out vividly against his chest and was sure to turn into a black bruise soon.

"Your tricks won't work here, _informant_." One of the guards, with a black snake tattooed on one side of his face, spat. He had a scar along the other side of his face, pale and thin.

Izaya straightened slowly, making sure to breathe slowly and deeply. It seemed that his reputation preceded him. On another day, in another situation, he would have been smug about it. Now, he just stared blankly at the guard's asymmetrical face.

In a moment, he was bundled into a shower and blasted with freezing water. Before his eyes had cleared, he was then handed a towel and a white prison jumpsuit, all folded with a cup and toothbrush on top. As he began to dress in jerky, methodical motions, he felt like he could still hear the metal clang of the door ringing in his ears.

.

He was then led down a hallway - no more doors this time, just barred gates that buzzed and opened when the security guard pressed his tag against the scanner. The floor was poured concrete, rough and pitted from years of use. The walls were similarly old and worn but made of white plaster instead. The dull sheen of glaze seemed to be marred often by grime and mold; cracks ran like spiderwebs through corners and edges. Strangely, there were patches of fresh white paint on some places on the wall, as if some sections were newer than the rest.

At last, he reached a common area, seemingly both a cafeteria and a large open space used for exercise. Some men sat on wooden benches, eating from metal trays. Their utensils were flimsy, clear plastic. Other men, often alone or in pairs, lifted weights on the other side. Izaya felt a jolt of surprise as he saw real weights - up to 50 pounds at least, on those bars.

All this took a moment to process as he was rushed across the room towards another hallway. Suddenly, Izaya felt a chill run down his back, an almost painful sensation that prickled every nerve ending on his spine. He froze, every joint locking up as if he were a rabbit under the yellow glare of a wolf. The sensation was familiar but had never been so strong before. He was being watched.

Before the guard next to him could whack him again, Izaya turned his head. Even without knowing what he was looking for, his eyes went straight to the far end of the room, where someone had come away from leaning against the wall, and was staring at him with eyes that seemed to burn with intensity. The rest of the world whited out.

The man was tall, with hair bleached yellow, and handsome features. He seemed long-limbed and lean, but Izaya knew that he could beat any of the hulking, muscled men lifting weights nearby with just the strength of one finger. This was Shizuo Heiwajima, a legend from Izaya's high school days, someone who had hated him, someone who he had loved, someone who was supposed to be dead, appearing like a ghost that had come back to haunt him.

Izaya stared back in complete and utter shock.

" _You,_ " The man growled. The look in his eyes made Izaya take an involuntary step back. " _What are you doing here?_ "

The guard next to Izaya raised a baton in warning, but as soon as he saw who had spoken, he hurriedly lowered it. With a warning shout, his hand strayed toward his belt. Izaya tore his eyes away from Shizuo to follow the motion. He had never seen Shizuo so ready to kill, and when he was angry nothing in the world could stop him.

And yet, instead of reaching for his pistol, the guard wrapped his fingers around a strange metal cylinder on the keyring. His thumb rested on a button, the only button on the entire device. Shizuo instantly stopped moving, and just scowled at the guard furiously.

"Holy shit," Izaya heard himself say distantly. He felt as if he had just been snatched from the jaws of death.

The guard jammed his baton into Izaya's back, but Izaya hardly felt it. " _Move_ ," he snarled, clearly uneasy and wanting to get out of here quickly. Another jab in the back and they started moving. They entered the hallway and began to walk down rows and rows of cells.

"You are in cell D18." the guard said. His voice was thick with tension. Izaya wondered if he also knew how close he had come to being torn apart like paper. "Cell doors unlock at 6 in the morning and lock at 8 in the evening. Mealtimes are at 7 in the morning, 12 in the afternoon, and 6 in the evening. The door to the yard is open from 1 to 5 in the afternoons."

They reached the final cell, the eighteenth and last one on the row. It had a bunk bed with two cots, a washbasin, a cracked drain, and a rusty metal shower head. Someone's cup and a towel were already on the lower bunk bed. Izaya turned, looking down the hallway. Based on the other cells, they seemed to fill up from furthest away to closest to the door. The other cells they passed by had been empty. This was a new row that they had just started to fill in. There would at least be some privacy.

The guard stood aside to let Izaya go in, but Izaya hesitated.

"Is there a reason I can't have a cell all to myself?" He cast a glance over the other cells along the hallway, all empty and unoccupied. He made his voice smooth and persuasive. "There's no reason to put two people in the same cell when there's still space, right?"

As Izaya spoke, he shifted closer until the guard's eyes flashed warningly at him. "I like having my own space," he said, lowering his voice into a suggestive drawl. "And I would owe you a favor."

The baton came, hard and fast, jabbing right into the bruise already forming on Izaya's chest. Izaya collapsed on to his knees with a yelp, almost barreling the guard over. "Easy! It was just a suggestion!" He fought to keep from cringing at how bad his acting was, but the guard didn't seem to notice. He pulled himself up.

"Leave me out of your games, _informant_." The guard shied away from him as if he were a snake. He brandished his baton, and Izaya backed away. This time, he went into the cell willingly. He set down his second set of clothing and his towel. There wasn't really space for a second cup next to the sink.

"Who's my cellmate?" He asked. Hopefully, they would be less likely to hit him.

"Shizuo Heiwajima," The guard answered. "You met him just outside. You two know each other, don't you?"

There was a beat of silence as Izaya almost dropped to the ground in a dead faint.

" _Fuck_ ," He swore. He wanted to scream. He wanted to _cry_. How was he going to survive this now?

Shizuo Heiwajima, class 3-B, the yellow-haired delinquent who smashed tables and threw chairs through windows at the slightest provocation.

Shizuo Heiwajima, who fought gangs after school and didn't care what numbers they brought, who won every single time.

Shizuo Heiwajima, the man he had put in prison.

.

The official records had said this: Shizuo Heiwajima, 18 years old. Charged with arson, of setting fire to a storage warehouse belonging to Raijin High School.

The rumors and legends of the incident said this: In the old, abandoned wreck of a warehouse behind the school, there used to live a demon. If you knocked three times on the door, you could make a deal with the demon and get anything you wished for, as long as you paid with pieces of your soul. If you didn't bring payment, then he would blow you away so far that you flew to the rooftops of the school.

All of that ended when a hundred delinquents banded together to kick him out. Instead of admitting defeat, the demon set the warehouse on fire. They fought until the screams were louder than the flames and the ground was soaked in blood, and every last delinquent had been torn to broken pieces.

But in the end, the demon had been wounded badly during the fighting. When the sun came up, he was gone. He had crept off to die alone, somewhere where he could never be found again.

The real story was something in between.

Izaya could remember the warehouse with a clarity that surprised him. Spray-painted signs covered each other at haphazard angles. White skulls covered with profanity covered with gang signs, all over the warehouse walls. Tires hung from the ceiling on clinking metal chains, and empty beer bottles lay strewn across the weed-covered floor.

For the span of several months, that warehouse and everything around it had been the property of Shizuo Heiwajima. No one could take it from him, and no one dared.

By that time, he had already gained a reputation for being an unstoppable force of nature. If you were in his way, he destroyed you as easily as breathing. If you looked at him crossways, he would bend your limbs into a puzzle and never miss a step. Everyone who was fool enough to try and take him on had already been thoroughly defeated. Some had been humiliated so badly that they never even showed their faces in public again.

Shizuo Heiwajima had been a god, untouchable and unkillable, to be feared from afar and avoided as much as possible.

Until it had all come to an end, two years ago.

Two years ago, Izaya had started his informant career by tipping the police off to the scene of a crime. The said crime scene was a warehouse, engulfed in flames. When the police arrived, they found Shizuo Heiwajima roaring in pain and fury over the bloodied and broken bodies of a hundred gang members. He had suffered no serious external wounds, but he had lost his voice from all the screaming.

Shizuo Heiwajima had been arrested on charges of arson and multiple counts of assault and battery. He, along with the hundred delinquents who had been rounded up with him, had been sent to jail.

Then, Shizuo Heiwajima had vanished, disappearing out of his cell.

.

When the guards had left, Izaya tossed his things onto the bottom bunk bed. Then, he began to inspect the cell.

It was small, maybe 9 by 12 feet, and the floor seemed to be made of plaster covering concrete. The shower and the sink and the toilet all worked, but the temperature of the water never got above lukewarm. The bunk bed was bolted to the floor, and the metal frame seemed to be welded together all in one piece, with no nails or bolts anywhere. On the side closer to the door, a thin metal ladder led up to the upper bunk bed, leaning at a slight angle. Izaya tested it, but it also seemed to be welded to the metal frame of the bunk bed.

A small slit of a window, four inches tall and maybe one foot wide, let in a little of the evening sunlight. Izaya briefly fantasized about starving until he grew four inches thin and squeezing out of the window to escape. Then, while he was at it, he imagined growing wings like a butterfly and flying up into the sun. If captivity drove one mad, he supposed that there didn't necessarily have to be a time limit.

The window was too high up for Izaya to see through, so he just stood under it and listened for a while. He heard no birds, and no voices, just the wind.

"Hey Izaya," A voice came from behind him, low and quiet. Izaya had been expecting it, but the sound still sent shivers of ice through his veins.

Izaya turned to smile bitterly over his shoulder. "Hey, Shizuo."

"What are you doing here?" Shizuo's tone was deceptively casual, for the murderous intent coming off of him in waves.

He stood just inside the cell door, but his presence filled the whole cell. Izaya could feel him like a physical pressure on his skin, like humidity, like the atmosphere. Normal weapons would be useless against him, and now there was nowhere to run. He finally faced Shizuo directly and was shocked by what he saw.

The past two years had left their mark on Shizuo. He looked rough and used to violence. He moved differently too. His childhood clumsiness had matured into a dangerous grace, self-assured and deadly. He had a hollow look in his eyes, making him seem older than he really was. A coin-sized metal disk was implanted on the side of his neck. Izaya's breath caught in his throat.

Shizuo took a step towards him. Izaya instinctively flinched back, but there was a wall already behind him. "Don't mess with me, Izaya. I want a straight answer for once. What the _hell_ are you doing here?"

"I could ask the same for you." The question had been nagging at him ever since he had laid eyes on Shizuo. He wanted to ask about the metal disc. He wanted to inspect it, to confirm what it really was and who had put it there.

Shizuo said nothing, just glared. Izaya decided that it would be in his best interest to keep talking. "I tried to sell information to the wrong people," he admitted.

Shizuo's mouth quirked, but it wasn't quite a smile. "Really?"

Izaya sighed. "Yes," he said flatly. He knew how it sounded, and wondered why he was even trying to explain himself to someone who was about to kill him. The ringing numbness from earlier in the day returned, and he couldn't keep the sarcasm out of his voice. "And clearly that worked out _great_."

"It just sounds like you got what you deserved," Shizuo answered coldly.

Izaya felt Shizuo's tone slice right into his marrow, tear his composure to shreds. He had forgotten that talking never worked with Shizuo. His tone instantly became sharp and mocking. "Oh? And you know _exactly_ what I deserve, don't you?" Anger was the only thing holding him together now, so he smiled and let it fill him up until it swallowed up the hurt in his voice.

His voice dripped with sarcasm. "You know _everything_ about me, right? You know everything I've done, and now you get to judge me for it. Well, _fuck you_ , Shizuo. Your hands are no cleaner than mine. You don't know anything. You were _gone_. You just fucked off to god-knows-where."

Distantly, he thought, _this is probably not a good idea_.

Shizuo's took two long strides until he was standing right in front of Izaya. His anger felt like the cracking of the earth before a volcano erupted. Izaya tried and failed to suppress a shiver. Shizuo's hands were clenched at his sides, and veins stood out on his arms and on his neck. A thunderstorm seemed to be raging under his skin, violent and ready to lash out at any moment. "Maybe you've forgotten, but I'm here because of _you_. You framed me, and I've been trapped in here ever since. _Two years_ , Izaya. Why suddenly show up now? Why here? _Answer me_."

He seized Izaya's collar, but Izaya was faster. With a whip-like motion, he pulled out a metal cylinder. It was a remote with only one button, but it felt strangely heavy. The cool press of metal against Shizuo's skin made him stop short.

For a long moment, neither moved, they just stared at each other. There was a dizzying sense of deja vu.

Shizuo blinked first. The remote was pointed the wrong way, with the button at the bottom instead. Izaya pulled it away from his throat, showing it to him a little more clearly. For some reason, Shizuo actually looked amused. He let go. "You know, that's a key, not a switchblade."

"I know," Izaya muttered and put it away. "I guess I panicked. Force of habit." He felt jittery, on edge, but he hadn't wanted to use the remote. That would probably be the last thing he did in this world.

Shizuo's anger melted away as if it had never existed. He didn't seem to be afraid of the remote in Izaya's hands. "How did you get that?" He sounded genuinely curious.

Izaya flushed. The last thing he wanted to do was recount his panicked, humiliating attempt to distract the guard long enough to detach metal remote from his keyring. Ever since he had seen it stop Shizuo in his tracks, he had been hell-bent on acquiring it by any means necessary. "It seemed to be the only thing that could save me from you, so I took it from the guard."

He had been intending to sit on it for a while longer, to use it as a last line of defense, in case of a rainy day. Some plan that had been. When the time came to use it, he probably wouldn't be able to bring himself to press the button.

"You should probably return it before they notice that it's missing," Shizuo advised.

"What, and leave me completely at your mercy?" Izaya's bitterness was too obvious for Shizuo to miss. Shizuo narrowed his eyes.

"I won't kill you," He said, and he wasn't lying. Izaya felt a dull shock reverberate through him, like a muffled gong. "They might."

"They're going to kill me anyway," Izaya replied. Saying it aloud, even carelessly, made his bones to numb with dread. He had been trying not to think about it, but he knew that it was true.

Shizuo's voice was tight. "Stop thinking that everybody's out to get you, Izaya."

"I'm not," Izaya snapped. When he met Shizuo's disbelieving glare, he narrowed his eyes. "This isn't a normal prison, Shizuo. I told you earlier. This place is run by the yakuza."

"That's impossible -" Shizuo started immediately.

"You were a _minor_ , Shizuo." Izaya cut him off. "You were supposed to be released after _three months_. Even with arson as a crime, it was just an abandoned warehouse. You should have been out in three months, or less because of good behavior. Did you _really_ think the government would lock you up for _two years_ because you burned some scrap metal?"

" _You_ were the one who burned it," Shizuo pointed out, but Izaya ignored him.

"You _really_ didn't know." Izaya let every ounce of his frustration and anger come out as biting sarcasm. Shizuo tensed. Izaya knew he was being reckless. Shizuo could still kill him with a single finger. He could never remember being this reckless before, but something inside him had rattled loose, had opened up. The words poured out.

"Did you think all the security guards here just wear tattoos for decorations? They're _gang signs_ , Shizuo. The white snake for Heaven's Slave, the chains for the Stray Dogs, the red sun for the Awakusu-Kai. You fought them so many times growing up. Were you so caught up in smashing their faces in that you never even bothered to notice?"

"What are you saying?"

"This place is run by the yakuza," Izaya repeated, enunciating each word clearly. "And I'm here because I tried to sell them out."


	2. Rejection

_They two of them sat, hip to hip, on the wooden planks, lounging in the warm sunlight that came through the large windows overhead. Rays of light made the dust in the air shimmer, made the summer heat seem like a fever dream. Izaya leaned back on his elbows and tried not to look too long at the way the light reflected off of Shizuo's hair._

_Shizuo flicked his finished popsicle stick onto the ground and leaned his head back with a sigh. He favored Izaya with a small, sideways smile. "I don't know why," he said drowsily. "But being with you is incredibly relaxing."_

_At this, Izaya sat up. He leaned over Shizuo with a mischievous grin. He made his voice light and teasing. "What's this? You actually enjoy being around me?"_

_Shizuo smiled at him again. The warmth of the air had eased some of the perpetual strain on his shoulders, in his eyes. "I said you're relaxing to be around. Strange, given that you never shut up."_

_Izaya reached over and traced his fingers behind Shizuo's ears, lightly tickled the back of his neck until Shizuo laughed and grabbed his hands. "Really? This is relaxing?" But with his hands caught, all he could do was smile. Their faces were inches apart, but Shizuo showed no signs of pulling away. Izaya felt dizzy with the weight of that gaze._

_He felt himself being drawn in. Shizuo's eyes were an irresistible combination of brown streaked with a lighter color that turned gold in the sunlight. Before he realized what he was doing, he pressed his lips to Shizuo's in a soft kiss._

_After a moment, he drew back. His heart pounding was so hard that he could barely hear anything past the rush of his blood in his ears. Shizuo was staring at him, his irises blown wide open with shock. Izaya leaned in again, unable to resist. He wanted to touch so badly that it felt like an ache in his chest. He reached out tentatively, pushing up Shizuo's shirt…_

_And was stopped cold by a grip on his wrist that allowed him to move no further. Shizuo was looking away now. He looked uncomfortable, and a deep red flush painted his cheeks._

_Izaya drew back his hand, and Shizuo let go. Without another word, Izaya flopped over to his side, his back to Shizuo. The silence that followed was long and tense._

.

In the silence that followed, Shizuo stared at Izaya as if seeing him for the first time. Izaya stared back defiantly at first, but he couldn't hold on to his edge of anger for long. He kept getting caught in the light brown streaks in Shizuo's eyes, and it reminded him painfully of how things used to be, before the fire, before the yakuza.

Shizuo seemed to be stunned speechless. He kept thinking of and discarding questions in his mind, but no words came out. Izaya kept waiting for disbelief, for rejection, but it never came.

He let Shizuo work through the deluge of information by himself, in silence. It felt strange to suddenly stop talking after he had just had an outburst. It felt like a dam running dry, or running full tilt off of a cliff and into a freefall, a moment of surprise where you suddenly finished something that you thought had been in infinite supply. Izaya felt strangely at a loss.

Compared to the raised voices and shouting from earlier, the quiet stillness seemed eerily calm.

Eventually, Shizuo nodded. Izaya drew a deep breath. It felt like his first breath since Shizuo had entered the cell with him.

"Well," Izaya said, half-jokingly. "All things considered, you took that pretty well. Maybe you're not as ignorant as I thought you were."

"Shut up, Izaya." Shizuo sounded exasperated, but there was no heat of anger in his voice. "Even though it's your job, you don't _actually_ know everything. Stop being so condescending." Absently, he raised a hand to touch the metal disc on his neck. The motion drew all of Izaya's attention.

This close, he could see the faint grooves on the metal. It was mostly undecorated, with no words or symbols on it. Two thin, barely noticeable lines ran in a zig-zag pattern through it, forming the shape of an S. It was clearly an electronic implant, about the size of a watch battery.

There seemed to be something sprouting out from it, running beneath Shizuo's skin, leaving slightly raised bumps where they burrowing into his veins. Izaya thought that they must be tiny wires.

He realized that Shizuo was staring at him.

He realized that he had his fingertips pressed lightly to the skin around the metal disc on Shizuo's neck, tracing the hidden wires. Their hands were almost touching.

A spasm of terror ran through Izaya, quick and violent. Slowly, innocuously, Izaya lowered his hands. Shizuo suppressed a flinch. His hand clenched into a fist before dropping to his side.

Izaya shoved his hands behind his back, and then dug his fingernails into his palms as hard as he could. _I'm over it_ , he thought furiously at himself. _It's all in the past. I've moved on._

There was a long pause.

"Have they ever used that on you?" He asked. His voice was impressively calm.

"No," Shizuo replied. Then, he grimaced at the taste the lie in his mouth. His voice dropped down to a near whisper. "Yes."

He searched Izaya's face, but Izaya had no idea what expression he was wearing right now. With an effort, Izaya kept his face as impassive as he could, and tried not to let his sudden fury show.

"Do you know what it is?" Izaya asked quietly.

"The police said it was a tracker when they put it on me." Shizuo covered the side of his neck with his palm, hiding the metal disc from view.

Izaya blinked. He had not realized that he had been staring at it. He tried to focus on the information and its implications. "The yakuza must have planned on taking you from the very start, then. That's black market technology, and definitely not something that ordinary policemen have access to."

He hated himself for not realizing it sooner. The police had been bought out by the yakuza. After all, the yakuza has full access to all the police files on the delinquents that they arrested, even minors who should have had their records deleted. It was a way for them to recruit, and a way to keep an eye out for potential problems in the future.

"What I don't get is why." Izaya began to pace up and down the length of the cell. "There were a hundred delinquents arrested at the same time, and they all came back. Who put that thing on you? Why you?"

Shizuo was silent for a long moment. Then, he uncovered the side of his neck to reveal the metal disk again. "I'm being experimented on," He said quietly. "I knew something was off about this place, but I couldn't do anything about it." He raked his fingers across the metal disc on his neck and grimaced. "Every time I resist, they zap me. Then I can't remember anything else for the rest of the day."

"Do you know who they are?" Izaya asked. His voice was perfectly level. He was not going to go on a killing spree. There would be no point.

"I don't get to see their faces with their masks on." Shizuo watched Izaya carefully. "But they're a research group that says they're studying me. They won't tell me why, though, and they usually pump me full of sedatives before they do anything."

Well. _That_ sounded illegal. Izaya began to run through the list of possible suspects in his head. "These doctors, do they wear any words or symbols or logos on their clothing?"

Shizuo hesitated, and then drew a loop in the air, followed by a cross underneath. "Some of them do, or at least the lead doctor does. They have a pin on their lapels with that shape."

Izaya felt a chill of surprise. For a moment, he forgot his anger completely. He repeated the shape in the air, an ankh. _Nebula_. Human experimentation. _Immortality_. He stared at Shizuo, at his impenetrable skin, his monstrous strength. No wonder Nebula was interested in Shizuo, or more specifically, in his body. He had always wondered where they had disappeared off to. A lot of things were turning up in places where they shouldn't be.

"Do you know something about them?" Shizuo asked. He reached out. "Izaya, are you okay? You look -"

Izaya completely lost his train of thought as Shizuo touched his face. Everything in the world seemed to come to a screeching halt. Shizuo brushed a finger across his cheek. His touch was gentle, tender even. Izaya forgot how to breathe.

For a long moment, Shizuo just kept his hand there, touching Izaya as if they weren't mortal enemies, as if they hadn't just tried to kill each other a minute ago. Then, he jerked his hand back as if it had been burned. He seemed to realize what he had done.

"Who are they?" He asked as if nothing had happened.

"Nebula," Izaya answered numbly. He kept on talking, to focus on something else. "They're a pharmaceutical company, based in the U.S. The company is just a cover for a much older organization, though. They used to be involved in human experimentation. In fact, if I remember correctly, they were particularly interested in supernatural cases where immortality was involved."

Izaya put his hand to his head. His thoughts were beginning to spin wildly out of control. _What was that?_ "The company went bankrupt a couple of years ago." _Is it a test? Is this revenge?_ "I could never find any of their employees." _Did I just imagine it?_ "They - they disappeared without a trace."

Shizuo didn't seem to be registering a single thing that he was saying. His eyes were fixed on Izaya's face, dark and endless, and he seemed to be fighting the urge to say something. Izaya realized that he was trembling, and with Shizuo standing so close to him, there was no way he wouldn't notice.

Shizuo brought his hand up to press his palm against Izaya's cheek. His fingers brushed Izaya's hair, the back of his neck. Izaya broke off eye contact with a shudder that seemed to set his skin on fire. His shoulders hit something - the ladder of the bunk bed.

"Are they really that frightening?" Shizuo asked, but his mind was clearly somewhere else. Izaya fought the desire to lean into him, drawn as if by a magnet.

Izaya shook his head blindly. "I'm not frightened of them." He had to pull himself together. He couldn't let Shizuo see -

"Are you frightened of me then?" Shizuo asked softly. There was pain buried beneath his voice, an old pain. His thumb brushed across Izaya's cheekbone.

The motion set every inch of Izaya's skin on fire. He shook his head involuntarily, a tiny motion that he seemed to have no control over. He tried to stay silent, to kill the sounds in his throat that would give him away.

Shizuo reached out past Izaya's shoulder to grip the ladder, trapping Izaya with nowhere to go, nowhere to escape. The motion brought their bodies closer together. Izaya pressed back against the ladder so hard that he could feel every rung digging into his skin. He drew in a shuddering breath, and when he met Shizuo's gaze he knew that it was too late.

He had always loved Shizuo's eyes, the intensity in them, the way gold flecks seemed to appear in his irises when he was fixated completely on something. They mesmerized him now, filled his vision and drove out every other thought in his head. When Shizuo's eyes dropped to his lips, Izaya felt his mouth go dry, felt that gaze set him aflame. When he leaned in, Izaya's lips parted in an agonized gasp.

The lights went out.

.

Izaya lost his mind.

In the darkness, he couldn't tell up from down, couldn't tell where he was or what he was doing. He couldn't even remember his name. For an infinite span of time, he was nothing but a jumble of sensations too intense to recognize. Every nerve seemed to be sizzling with a white-hot heat that numbed his body with pleasure and blanked out his thoughts.

He couldn't remember breathing, but with Shizuo's mouth on his, hot and hungry and desperate, Izaya didn't dare to move away. He heard someone's moans. They sounded drunk and insane.

With an effort, he shut his mouth. But Shizuo just pressed against him harder, making every inch of skin flare up with sensation and heat. Izaya gasped, and he was helpless again to every searing press of lips, every intoxicating touch.

Shizuo kissed him with a possessiveness that seemed to want to consume Izaya entirely. He had his knee in between Izaya's legs and pinned him against the ladder with his entire body. Every shift in his movement made Izaya's mind go blank with heat.

Shizuo's hand was supporting the back of Izaya's head, his thumb digging into the skin beneath Izaya's ear. His skin felt like the sun, leaving burning imprints everywhere it touched.

Dizzily, Izaya tried to turn his head away, to breathe, to gather his thoughts. With a sound that melted his very bones, Shizuo held Izaya in place and kissed him until spots appeared in his vision. _You stay here until I let you go_ , he seemed to be saying, _and not one moment before._ The kisses became bolder after that, long and deep and impossibly satisfying.

At some point in time, maybe before, maybe after, Izaya found himself staring into Shizuo's eyes. He could barely see the other's face in the darkness, but Shizuo was so close that their noses were practically touching. Their breaths came fast and hard as if they had been sprinting. Izaya bit back a sound that seemed to start from the back of his head and pulse through his entire body with heat. It came out like a muffled cry of pain. He wasn't sure, but for a moment in the darkness, he thought Shizuo looked hurt.

He became aware of a sharp sensation, briefly drawing all of his attention. In the dark, it took him a moment to realize it was the feeling of teeth on the skin of his throat, his collarbone, his shoulder. They only stung for a moment before the pain turned into a source of pleasure that poured fire his veins. He tried to reach out, to fumble his hands into Shizuo's hair, to try and find skin. His wrists were caught before they had lifted halfway and forced to his sides. He lost himself for a long while after that.

Izaya felt hands, desperate and impatient, fumbling against his skin in the darkness. He leaned forward into them and lifted his arms to let Shizuo take off his shirt. His skin never even registered the cold air. He was immediately wrapped in a warm embrace, pressed firmly against skin that seemed to be burning with the heat of the sun. He trembled helplessly, and he must have made some sort of sound because Shizuo covered his mouth with his, muffling his voice and swallowing the noises greedily.

He let his head fall back and dragged his tongue softly against Shizuo's mouth. Shizuo made an insane, fucked out noise in response, a ragged inhale, a mindless sound of desire. There were no words, just sounds that any creature could have understood, the sharp gasp of arousal, the groan of pleasure. Izaya could barely even form words in his head. All he knew was that he craved Shizuo's hands on his body, and fell to pieces at the slightest touch.

Shizuo's hands were all over him now, moving possessively down his back, pressing against the dip of his spine. They were both breathing hard. Izaya felt so warm that he thought he could feel sweat appearing on his back, and sliding down his spine. The sensation made his body tingle, and he shivered as it became too much for him to handle. When Shizuo's hands stopped, Izaya made a faint pleading sound in the back of his throat.

Shizuo's breath caught. A tremor ran through his body, like a roll of drums. For a moment, he was completely still, but Izaya couldn't see the expression on his face in the darkness. When he didn't move, Izaya almost stopped breathing.

But then he was back, crushing their bodies together. Izaya drowned in that embrace, feeling the release of pressure in his chest so strongly that he could barely think of anything else. It was an ache, cold and physical, that was slowly being worn away with every touch, every kiss. His gasps were grateful, half-sobs of relief. With an effort, Izaya forced himself to be quiet. He did not want to make Shizuo stop again.

He found himself trembling in Shizuo's arms, unable to stand. In a daze, he felt Shizuo leading him away from the ladder. He followed as closely as he could, trying not to stumble in the dark, trying not to shiver from the loss of contact. Shizuo's grip on his arm was the only thing that existed for him, in that void, so he clung to it with the desperation of a man stranded at sea, given a single lifeline.

Shizuo seemed to have no trouble finding his way around in the dark. He half-led half carried Izaya around the bed and pulled him down. Izaya wrapped his arms around Shizuo's neck, not trusting himself to stay upright. His head banged against the top bunk bed.

The fingers that flew to his forehead were panicked and worried, probing for injuries. There was a sharp intake of breath, a silent question.

Izaya couldn't help it. He laughed. The blow had actually cleared his head a little. He didn't want his head to be clear, though. He wanted the taste of Shizuo's lips, the soft of his mouth, the addicting burn of his skin. He wanted to forget the world outside and the death that waited there. Touching Shizuo made him forget everything. He craved that like a drug addict, after receiving their first hit. He found himself straddling Shizuo's thighs, clinging to Shizuo's neck. He arched his back, pressing hard against Shizuo's chest. His legs slid up Shizuo's thighs, and the friction shot up through his spine right through his skull.

Izaya shuddered, aroused beyond all bearing, suddenly wanting more than just kisses. He wanted Shizuo's cock, the thrust of his hips, the heat of his release. He wanted it like an ache, a physical pain inside of him, digging into his skin from the inside out, a hole that needed to be filled. Izaya felt certain that it would tear him apart, the way he craved more touch. He made the suggestion wordlessly, with the rocking motions of his body, the pleading note in his voice. He couldn't move his hands, found them gathered by the wrists by one of Shizuo's hands, shackling them into stillness.

Shizuo was breathing hard. He turned sideways and pushed Izaya down, pinning him down with one hand. The other hand trailed down from his shoulder to his hip. Izaya groaned wildly, his voice breaking over the anticipation in his chest. He started to buck his hips against Shizuo's hands, desperate for more friction, more contact, more force against his skin. Shizuo tightened his grip with a gasp, forcing Izaya to be still.

" _Please_ ," Izaya gasped, but he was not sure if Shizuo heard him. The pressure of hands moved from his hip to his thighs. Shizuo leaned over Izaya's shoulder, pinning him in place with his body. His hand came up again, smoothing the hair out of Izaya's face. He trailed his knuckles along the side of Izaya's cheek, brushed a thumb across his lips, forcing him to be quiet. Izaya shuddered. For an instant, he had a mad desire to bite down, to leave a mark on the fingers that had marked him. He was distracted from that impulse by the kiss the followed, gentle and reassuring, a silent apology in the soft press of those lips. He wasn't sure what Shizuo was apologizing for.

Izaya tried again to move his hips, to push more clothing away from Shizuo's skin, to silently ask for more. But his tiny movement just ran up against Shizuo's body and stopped as if they had hit a wall. All of his suggestions were ignored, not rejected, but try as he might, Shizuo never moved beyond kissing. He was completely at Shizuo's mercy, too weak to lift a finger, and too distracted to think. As his consciousness scattered into the thousand shards of pleasure that ran through his entire body, Izaya resigned himself to whatever Shizuo was willing to give him.

.

When the morning came, Shizuo was still kissing him with slow, languid strokes. They had somehow made it to the bottom bunk bed. Izaya had stopped trembling hours ago. Now, he just coasted on waves of pleasure that soaked through his entire body and dragged gently across his frayed nerves and hypersensitive skin.

A loud _clack_ startled him out of his haze. Izaya looked up wildly at the cell door, before realizing that it was just an automatic unlocking sound. He drew in a startled breath. It was already morning? Before he could get up, though, Shizuo pressed him down firmly.

"No," he murmured, his words slurring a little from lack of sleep. He pressed his lips into Izaya's, more of a weight to push him down than a kiss. "I'm not done with you yet." There was a shiver-inducing note of possessiveness in his voice, but he also sounded soft and warm and incredibly domestic. He sounded as if they had just woken up together, in each other's arms.

Izaya was more than happy to play his part. He nuzzled in against Shizuo, making soft, pleased noises against his mouth. Shizuo rewarded him with a long, deep kiss that made Izaya forget completely about the time of day.

The sun climbed steadily higher in the sky, and the window let in more and more light. Wrapped up in his exhaustion and bliss, Izaya was only dimly aware of the retreating darkness.

He found himself holding Shizuo's gaze, and suddenly realizing that he could pick out the streaks of lighter brown in his irises. He watched Shizuo watching him, drowned in the soft look in his eyes. He couldn't look away.

He noticed the instant that Shizuo's eyes went brittle and wide with horror.

Izaya flinched at the sudden change. In the dim morning light, he could see every expression on Shizuo's face. For a long moment, Shizuo just stared at his face, but all the warmth and softness was gone now. His eyes were tight with pain, and the haunted look was back.

 _What's wrong?_ He tried to say, but in the midst of all his blurry exhaustion, his words couldn't come out properly. He was suddenly very afraid.

Shizuo lifted his hands from Izaya's waist, where he had been holding him down. He looked at the place where his hands had been, and his entire body seemed to recoil from the sight. Sitting up, he stared at his hands as if they had poison in them. His face twisted in anguish. He closed his eyes briefly.

Izaya couldn't believe what he was seeing. His blood was still pounding in his ears, loud and warm and insistent. With each heartbeat, he could hear the blood in his veins seem to slow down with dread. His lips were still raw and stinging from the kisses, and his body still remembered every touch. He felt like he was going crazy. _Did I just imagine it all?_

Weakly, he tried to reach out and pull Shizuo back down on top of him. Without even thinking about it, Shizuo pushed his hands aside. In the ringing silence that followed, Izaya braced himself for the next blow.

"I'm sorry," Shizuo whispered. "For everything."

He got up and left the cell, leaving the door slightly ajar. The sound of his footsteps faded down the hall. Izaya lay with his back against the bed, trying to focus. Every breath felt like slivers of ice digging into his veins. The heat of his skin dissipated into the cold air. His trembling returned, but without anything to run up against, he just felt unstable and cast adrift into an uncaring sea. The cold numbness from earlier returned, seeping into his bones, feeling like cruel fingers dragging under his skin. Eventually, it was the exhaustion that overwhelmed him and dragged him under into a dark and dreamless sleep.


	3. Empty Threats

In the end, someone came to put him out of his misery.

Izaya woke up with a start as a hand shook him by the shoulder. The light that came in through the window was bright and strong. It seemed to be sometime in the afternoon. When he got up, he found himself facing a guard with a red sun tattooed on his bare shoulder.

"You have a visitor," the guard said.

He was given enough time to wash his hands and face. He found his shirt on the top bunk bed, folded and undamaged. When he pulled on his shirt, Izaya hissed in surprise. Looking down, he discovered that the bruise on his chest had bloomed black and blue. Izaya touched it gingerly and then decided to ignore it. It wasn't the only bruise on his body now, and soon enough, it wouldn't matter anyway.

He was escorted out of the cell and led down the hallway. They passed the common room with some men still eating. There was no sign of Shizuo.

Izaya was brought almost all the way to the prison entrance before the guard suddenly made a sharp left turn. This hallway was much shorter, with doors that seemed to lead into more hallways or conference rooms. The last door pushed open into a room with whitewashed walls, sterile and cold. There was a single table, plastic and folded open, two chairs, and a man.

The man sitting at the table, his arms folded, had a bare head and tanned skin. He was relatively thin, with dull mud-colored eyes and stubble across his chin. He nodded to the guard as the door shut, leaving only the two of them in the room. This man was Kine, information broker for the Awakusu-Kai.

Izaya felt a surprising stab of relief. Kine was not a hitman. He specialized in getting information. If he was here, the yakuza still wanted something out of him.

"You look terrible," he said, once Izaya had settled himself in a chair across from him. His eyes, as always, lingered a little too long on Izaya's face. "They treating you well in here?"

Izaya slung one arm over the back of his chair and considered Kine for a long time. He had known this man for two years, had worked with him on several cases when finding a missing person had gotten particularly tricky. Kine was even-keeled and well-connected. If anyone in the world could be considered his mentor, it would be this man.

"Kine-san," he said finally. "Were you the one responsible for putting Shizuo Heiwajima in here?"

The man was a consummate professional. Not a single flicker of emotion crossed his face. But he was still someone Izaya could read; the silence dragged on a fraction too long.

"You're not the one asking questions here, Izaya. I'll be the one doing that."

Izaya shut his eyes briefly. Two whole years. Two whole years and the answer had been sitting right in front of him the whole time.

"What makes you think I'll answer?" His smile was savage and mocking. He couldn't bring himself to be afraid of Kine, not when he had worked with the man for so long. "Are you planning to threaten me with the lives of my family, my friends? That's how you usually work, isn't that right? I hope you know me well enough not to try that, Kine."

"Your sisters are already dead," Kine said flatly. His mud-brown eyes watched Izaya for his reaction. When he got none, he added: "Along with Shinra Kishitani and Kyohei Kadota. I hope you understand, Izaya, that we're not taking your betrayal lightly."

Izaya stared at him, looking for the telltale signs of a lie. What Kine was suggesting had to be impossible. Would the police really ignore the murders of two schoolgirls and a well-known doctor? Was the yakuza seriously capable of buying off that many people? His head filled with the sound of metallic ringing. Who had given the order? Had it been Kine? Had it been any of the upper echelons of the yakuza?

All Kine saw, however, was a slight smile, still savage and mocking, as Izaya considered of all the creative and cruel ways he would exact his revenge.

And unfortunately for him, he had never been able to read past Izaya's mask. Kine sighed, giving up. "I guessed that wouldn't work on you. I thought I might give it a try though."

Izaya snapped back to reality with enough force to make his head spin. Of course. It had been a lie. His smile faded.

"Kine," he said coldly, "If you're only here to threaten me, and that's all you could come up with, then you're even more of a disappointment than I thought."

Kine didn't react. He just sat there, patient, waiting for Izaya to cave.

Eventually, Izaya did. He couldn't contain his curiosity. "What are you doing here, Kine?" He asked. "Your men took my phone. Surely you already know everything I know."

Of course, it hadn't been that simple. All the data on all of Izaya's multiple phones and computers had been encrypted. He and Kine were both well aware of the danger of leaving information lying about on easily stolen devices. A little optimistically, Izaya had calculated that it would take a week at least for them to crack the password.

Kine reached into his coat pocket and shuffled around a bit before producing a black disk drive. Izaya felt a startled shiver run down his spine. He realized that he had underestimated the yakuza. It had only taken them a day.

"I've seen this, and so has everyone else mentioned in here. It's very well documented, Izaya. There's enough in here for us to want you dead ten times over."

The disk sat alone on the white table, and Izaya thought of all the video recordings and pictures on it, all organized by date and incident. Conversations in dark rooms, in crowded restaurants, in noisy bars. Pictures of shipping receipts for weapons, drugs, prostitutes and more. Enough evidence to lock up the entire upper echelon of the yakuza for twenty years. He had been careful, but evidently not careful enough.

"So we have proof that you tried to sell us out. And we have proof that this is a long-term plan. The only question now, is _why?_ Why would you try to sell us out, Izaya?"

"I didn't, actually." Izaya pointed out. "The man I spoke to was one of yours. How could that be considered _selling out?_ "

Kine ignored him as if he hadn't spoken. "You're not the righteous type. The things we do are hardly enough to make you bat an eyelash. I've always made sure that we treated you well. We were paying more than enough for your sisters' education, and for a comfortable life besides. Why throw all of that away? Why spit in our faces?"

"You keep on framing it as if I betrayed you," Izaya said flatly. "I'm not the yakuza's personal information broker, Kine. I'm a freelancer. I take what business I can get."

Kine reached into his coat pocket and produced an envelope full of small paper squares. He counted out a few and lined them up on the table, all in a neat row. He had always liked things tidy. "Let's make this simpler," he said. "For each one of my questions that you do not answer, or try to avoid, I will have a guard come in and force one of these down your throat."

Izaya almost laughed, even as his skin crawled as if it were trying to peel away entirely. From his end of the table, he could see the black letters in the shape of an H and an S, printed in an elaborate script. Those paper squares hid two white dots inside, like two pips on a dice.

This was the real threat that Kine had brought, and it wasn't a joke. Drugs, a sweet escape from reality for a couple of days while he wasted away on death row. And not just any drugs, but Heaven's Slave, something so addicting that the craving for another hit would make Izaya blurt out every secret he knew.

This would be worse than beatings and whippings. If he took a single one of those, Izaya was doomed to a fate worse than death. Ingesting that many would wring him dry, peel his muscles off of his bones, turn his brain into drug-addled mush. He would say anything, do anything to just get another hit. He would be kept alive as an example, a warning, to those who betrayed the yakuza. They would point out to him as he crawled and writhed on the ground, lesser than a dog, and soon no one would remember what he had really been like.

Kine saw the understanding play out on Izaya's face. He did not seem to enjoy it.

The questioning began. Typical nonsense, beginning with simple questions like name, gender, date of birth, family members, background, history, all verifiable facts. Then, Kine moved on to more complex questions. Likes, dislikes, preferences, annoyances, friendships, relationships, previous job experiences. Then, his relationship with the yakuza, when he had started working for them, list of jobs he had taken on for them, incidents, deals, conflicts, resolutions, meetings, dates, locations, topics of conversation. Then, his other line of work, his other contacts, acquaintances, coworkers, clients. The cases he had taken on, finding missing people, investigating murders, thefts, robberies, hit-and-runs. Who had first approached him requesting information about the yakuza. When had they approached him. Details about their correspondence, e-mails, text messages, phone calls, words repeated verbatim.

Izaya maintained his stubborn insistence that he had been approached online, anonymously. There had been promises of payment, and when he had delivered what they wanted, he had been betrayed and given right into the yakuza's hands.

The exhausting battery of questions continued. Kine did not seem to tire in his pursuit of truth and did not seem to react when Izaya's story remained the same, again and again. He had been approached. He had been betrayed.

Finally, Kine leaned back, picking up a packet of Heaven's Slave, twirling the white square in his fingers. For a long time, he just looked at it and didn't say anything. The silence was deafening, ringing in Izaya's head, like a high-pitched whine somewhere off in the distance. The two pips inside the white packet showed every time the light passed through the paper at a certain angle. Kine seemed to be considering using it, finally, if only to punish Izaya for wasting his time. The motion set all of Izaya's frayed nerves on high alert.

Izaya's eyes on him were accusing. When he spoke, his voice crackled with scorn. "Was this your idea? Are you going to get your wish after all, and turn me into a drug addict, a _slave_ , and use me up until I die from it?"

None of his harsh words seemed to get under Kine's skin. When Kine finally spoke, his tone was flat and dry. "Yes, I was the one who suggested it. The others wanted something a bit more bloody, a bit more painful. But I'm starting to bring them around. You see, there is some poetic justice to have you enslaved by something that you helped create. And besides, this means that you get to keep your pretty face. I've told you, before. You're just their type."

Izaya did not feel like laughing now. A sick sort of dread roiled in his stomach. He had seen the wasted creatures that the yakuza kept in their bordellos, their humanity stripped out by chemicals. They were enslaved by something worse than shackles and locked doors. Even if they had been rescued, they would have clawed through flesh and bone in order to get back into the yakuza's hands, in order to get back to their supply of drugs.

"You always enjoyed observing other humans from a distance," Kine said as if he had read Izaya's thoughts. "It would be nice to see how you survive once you've been dragged down among the worst of us."

Izaya flinched back as Kine got up, a hand splayed over the white squares of Heaven's Slave.

"I can help you, you know." Kine knew that he had Izaya rattled and pressed on his advantage. "I came here to talk. Give me the people who hired you. Give me something to bring back to the others, and maybe I can talk them into showing some mercy."

Here it was, the carrot instead of the stick. Izaya had known that it would be coming, but he had not expected it to be so tempting. Something tickled at the back of his mind, however. _I came here_ , not _I was sent here_.

Instead of saying anything, Izaya got up. Kine watched him expectantly. Izaya unbuttoned his shirt and pulled it off. His skin crawled as it came into contact with the cold air.

Kine had a raised eyebrow, clearly unimpressed with Izaya's display. When he saw the marks on Izaya's skin, however, his face became a mask of barely-hidden shock. His eyes trailed the welts along Izaya's back, the bruises on his ribs. They stayed on the red bite marks at his collarbone for a long time. When he looked at Izaya again, his eyes were glittering with anger. Not at Izaya, but at something else. It took a great deal to anger Kine.

"Who did this?" Kine asked.

"If this is your mercy," Izaya said, his voice hard. "Then I don't know how it's any better than being one of your bordello slaves."

"Was it Haruya?" Kine seemed to be barely suppressing his rage. He stared at Izaya with mud-colored eyes that seemed to bore straight through him.

Izaya leaned forward, reversing their positions so that now he was the one with his hands splayed out on the table.

"Threaten me all you want," he said softly. "I know I don't have much longer to live, no matter what you say. But just because I'm gone doesn't mean that you're safe, Kine. You and your _friends_ are meddling with something way above your pay grade. You want to know who hired me? You want to know how much they paid?"

He paused, to increase the effect of his words. " _5 million yen_."

The silence that followed was so total that the sound of a pin dropping could have shattered it.

"You think you're the only ones in the city with that much influence? You're wrong. It isn't a _name_ , it's an _organization_ \- a group of people that are becoming _very_ interested in the yakuza's activities, especially around their research into immortality. They don't like to have normal humans poking into their territory, you see."

Kine's eyes widened just a fraction. Izaya pushed the Heaven's Slave squares back toward him, messing up that neat line and making it into a jumbled pile. He felt dizzy, almost lightheaded with the magnitude of his lie, but there was enough truth in it to be convincing. Kine met his eyes, suspicious and disbelieving, but he didn't say anything. He had taken the bait.

"Next time you come," Izaya said. "I expect you to bring something better than empty threats."

.

When they came out the door, Izaya was still buttoning up his shirt. Kine's eyes lingered on the exposed skin of his throat. His voice had a disbelieving lilt to it. "What are you planning, Izaya?"

Izaya's smile was, if not evil, at least a little close to it.

Kine's expression didn't change, but Izaya had the feeling that he almost rolled his eyes. He seemed to think that Izaya was playing some kind of game with him.

"I'll see you tomorrow then," Kine said. Suddenly, his hand came up to touch Izaya's cheek.

Izaya flinched back. " _Really,_ Kine?" He asked sharply.

Kine sighed and then drew his hand back. "Take better care of yourself," he said, actually managing to make it sound completely normal, as if he hadn't just threatened to make Izaya a sex slave and a drug addict, and almost followed up on it.

When he passed by the guard with the red sun tattoo, he said a couple of quiet words into his ear. The guard straightened visibly. He cast Izaya a startled glance. Then, they both left through the heavily secured door that was the prison entrance.

It would have been easy, in that room, for Kine to force Izaya into swallowing one of those paper squares. Once that happened, Izaya would be a fish with a hook set into his skin, to be reeled in at anyone's leisure. Izaya shivered as he realized that he had just bought himself another day to live.

When Izaya turned around, he saw Shizuo standing right behind him.

He had been leaning casually against the entrance to the hallway, long and lithe and as graceful as a predator. Now, his body seemed tense and restless, coiled as if he were about to strike. His eyes flicked from the doorway to Izaya's face. He had seen everything.

Izaya had thought that, after this morning, nothing Shizuo did could hurt him anymore. He was wrong.

"So," Shizuo said, in icy tones. There was fury in his eyes. The hard lines of his face seemed to be carved out of stone. "It seems like you're still working with the yakuza. You seem to make a point of climbing into bed with people you've betrayed."

.

The silence in the hallway stretched as Shizuo waited for him to reply and Izaya tried not to kill him.

A part of him, the part that was a howling, wounded animal, the part that was all fight-or-flee instincts, demanded blood in exchange for blood. For a moment, he fantasized about lunging and tearing Shizuo's throat out. In his mind's eye, blood spattered across the whitewashed walls, followed by bone and guts and brains. Another part of him, colder and crueler, imagined saying - _Well, you know how it is in my line of work, Shizuo. At least he pays better than you do._

He did neither. Maybe, two days ago, he would have been able to smile and return the pain he felt three-fold. But now he just stood there, motionless, feeling hollowed out and empty, as if he had been the one eviscerated. After the shock had passed, the rest of him came back with an overwhelming need to get out of here. He had to leave. He had to get away, at least temporarily, from death threats and people who looked at him too long.

He brushed by Shizuo, barely looking at him. Shizuo made a motion as if to grab his arm, but Izaya just twisted out of the way. " _Keep your hands off of me_ ," he hissed, all the venomous hatred and fear from earlier coming out in a snarl. He felt sick at the sight of Shizuo's face, the way Shizuo recoiled and pulled back his hands away. It felt like a final blow, the rejection that he had always feared. To his horror, he felt the sting of tears in his eyes.

Shizuo tried to reach for him again, but Izaya backed away. He blinked and felt tears make a hot trail down his cheek. "Stay away from me," he ordered harshly. Turning, he disappeared out of the doorway and fled.


	4. Broken Promises

The warehouse had high ceilings, with windows at the top that functioned as skylights. With the sun was high and bright in the sky, the space glowed with a soft warmth. Patches of sunlight shone on the grass and weeds that poked their way through the metal and concrete. In the vast, empty space, the silence was broken by methodical clicks as Izaya threw up his switchblade and caught it in with hand.

He was lying on his back, nestled into the steel beams that crisscrossed the warehouse ceilings. It was at least ten feet off the ground, but Izaya didn't seem to be aware of the height at all. He seemed comfortable and relaxed, even a little sleepy. He watched Shizuo through half-lidded eyes that gleamed red in the sunlight.

Shizuo wondered what the view would be like from up there. He imagined seeing the entirety of the space from a bird's eye view: the two tires hanging from rusty chains, nearly reaching the floor. The wooden platform that still remained, shining golden in the sunlight. The various chairs and gym equipment scattered everywhere. The spray-painted walls. The metal doors. And him, standing in the middle of all, staring up at Izaya like a lovestruck fool.

He flushed self-consciously and looked away. He couldn't remember what his expression had been.

"How did you get up there?" He asked, covering up the heat in his voice with gruff irritation. "It's dangerous. Get down."

Izaya's laugh was sharp and mocking. "It's a secret," he sang. He smiled as if inviting Shizuo to ask for more. When Shizuo remained silent, he just shrugged and threw up his switchblade again. Shizuo's attention tangled helplessly around the motion of his fingers.

"Stop showing off," Shizuo growled. He wanted to dig his fingers into the metal beam, to bring it down. With an effort, he held himself still. He had managed to go several days without destroying anything, and he was beginning to hope that his luck would hold.

Izaya caught the switchblade and swung his legs over the side of the steel beam. Shizuo's breath caught in his throat. He started forward involuntarily.

"Catch me," Izaya said. He jumped.

Shizuo's heart almost leaped out of his chest. For a heart-stopping moment, he thought he would be too late, but in the next instant, Izaya crashed into his arms, the impact of it nearly knocking him down. Shizuo's head filled with Izaya's scent, warm with a slightly metallic tang to it. He had to fight hard to steady his balance, to keep upright while Izaya laughed and clung to his shoulders.

The heat filled his head, blanked out his thoughts. He almost let impulse overwhelm him, almost let Izaya's weight carry them down to the floor, where he could pin the other against the ground and drown himself in the give of Izaya's body. He caught himself at the last second. He had a horrible vision of crushing bone and breaking skin under his fingers, of seeing Izaya's face twist in pain as Shizuo's hands hurt him. He held himself back, locked himself into stillness, even with the sensation of Izaya's skin under his fingers turning his restraint into torture.

"Good job," Izaya ruffled a hand through his hair. His grin was a little crazy, his only acknowledgment of what a stupid stunt he had just pulled. Shizuo watched his mouth helplessly, knowing what was coming next, unable to stop it.

When Izaya dipped his head down to kiss him, Shizuo shut his eyes against the devastating urge to bury his hands into the other boy's hair, to demand more from those lips. He wanted more than teasing kisses, light and painful, ripping him to pieces every time Izaya pulled back with a laugh and continued on as if nothing had happened.

But this kiss was something different. Maybe it was the angle, but Izaya's kiss was deeper, the soft flick of his tongue running across Shizuo's, making his head spin. It went on longer, too, until Shizuo felt the lack of air in his chest begin to ache. But he didn't dare move away to breathe, not with Izaya's kiss exploring his mouth so openly. His body flared with hope, something even more devastating than the arousal that he had been trying to hide.

When Izaya pulled back, they both had to regain their breath before either of them could speak. Shizuo forced his hands to be still, even when all he wanted to do was pull Izaya back in for another one of those kisses. He would never be able to get enough of those. With an ugly shock, he realized that the corner of Izaya's mouth was bleeding, either from the jolt of the landing or from the unintentional drag of his teeth from the kiss. He wanted to run his tongue across the injured skin, wanted to capture Izaya's lips in another kiss, even as a part of him reeled in horror at the sight of Izaya's blood. Shizuo forced himself to be calm, to stay in control. He regained his breath first.

"What were you _thinking_?" Shizuo couldn't keep the strain out of his voice. He let Izaya down slowly, savoring every moment of contact even as he hated himself for it. He wiped the blood away with his thumb, stepped back before he could do something thoughtless and harmful. He hated himself for letting go. He desperately hoped for Izaya to stay. "You're hurt."

Izaya shrugged and stepped back. Shizuo felt that like a blow to his body. "It was worth it for the look on your face," he teased. His grin was unaffected and carefree. The sight of it was like a knife dragging across Shizuo's chest.

Shizuo wanted to reach for him, to stop him from moving away. He wanted to pin the other boy down to the floor, to make an offer out of the suggestion in those hips, the promise of reciprocation in his eyes. He wanted to make marks of ownership on that skin, to demand answers from those lips. But Izaya flitted out of his reach before he could lift his hands. He went to push open the door, and Shizuo felt sick with the realization that Izaya was about to leave, again, without another word, without even acknowledging that kiss.

He had tried to get Izaya to explain those kisses before. The answers he had gotten were always lighthearted and teasing, leaving him crushed and heartbroken. _Don't think too much about it,_ Izaya had said, even though those kisses had been all Shizuo could think about for days on end. They were for practice. It was a joke. It was just something Izaya did as naturally as breathing, like saying hello or goodbye. It didn't matter how perfectly they had fit together, how many times they had dragged each other into a mad spin of mindless, possessive heat. It didn't matter how much Shizuo dreamed about the sound of Izaya's voice breaking over his name, how many times he imagined Izaya's body underneath him. It didn't matter as long as Izaya saw him as just another pawn, just like everyone else, just like the girls he had dated throughout high school and the boys he had flirted with as easily as breathing. He would be thrown away eventually, just like the others had been, no matter how much payment he had demanded for being used, no matter how much of Izaya's body he had been able to take.

Izaya liked messing with people, especially with Shizuo. This was just another one of the ways he got under Shizuo's skin and into his brain, filled him up with adrenaline and longing and despair, all just to see what he would do next.

Not for the first time, Shizuo wondered what it would be like to finally lose control, to hold Izaya down and play out every sick fantasy, every one of his warped desires. It would be so easy. Izaya was stronger than he looked, with his delicate features and that lean build, but Shizuo could do whatever he wanted if he had Izaya trapped.

Abruptly, Shizuo realized that he was standing alone in the warehouse, fantasizing about forcing himself on to his best friend.

 _Fuck_ , he was so sick with shame and desire that he could barely breathe. He hated Izaya for messing with him like this, so easily. He hated himself for falling for it, for wanting it. _I really am a monster_.

.

Eventually, it was the heat in his veins and the ache in his chest that decided him. Shizuo started toward the door, intent on finding Izaya and bringing this to an end after all. That had not been a normal kiss. Shizuo couldn't imagine Izaya doing that to just anyone. Things couldn't be the same. Something must have changed.

He tried to kill the hope in his chest, but it flared to life as he imagined long afternoons spent with Izaya at his side, close enough to touch instead of on the other end of the warehouse. He imagined brushing his fingers across Izaya's face, gentle enough to not leave bruises for once. He imagined holding the other boy against him, carefully, pressing soft kisses into his skin instead of breaking skin and drawing blood. He could still taste Izaya's kiss, the sharp tang of it heating his blood. He wanted that again, would do anything for it, would destroy anything, even whatever it was they had between them.

Even as he pushed open the door and came out into the bright sunlight, Shizuo was aware of how reckless he was being. His body thrummed with adrenaline like it usually did right before a fight.

Izaya was nowhere to be seen. Shizuo stopped to consider the broken pavement, the road back to the school. It was too early for Izaya to head back home. Izaya almost never went home before Shizuo did. That meant that Izaya was probably still in the area somewhere.

He was just about to call out Izaya's name when he rounded the corner of the warehouse and saw him. Izaya was leaning against the building, talking with another man. Without even thinking about it, Shizuo fled back behind the corner, his heart suddenly racing. They had been standing close together.

Feeling a bit foolish, Shizuo looked again, wondering if he had just imagined it.

The man that Izaya was speaking to was tall and bald, with mud-colored eyes and a brown tweed jacket worn loosely about his shoulders. He had a hand on Izaya's shoulder and was standing too close.

Shizuo's heart went into freefall.

Izaya's voice lilted teasingly. He seemed to be speaking, completely unconcerned with the hand on his shoulder. In fact, he seemed as relaxed as ever. He looked right into the man's face, only a few inches away from his. His gaze was direct and challenging, almost daring him to do something. His eyes were a mesmerizing red, and there was invitation on every line of his body, the angle of his shoulders against the wall, the line of his throat.

The smile on his face was a perfect echo of a few minutes ago when he had turned it on Shizuo and teased him. _It was worth it for the look on your face_.

Then, all of a sudden, the mud-eyed man was kissing Izaya against the wall. He had to lean down to do it, but the movement had been clear. Their lips had touched, and the man had been asking for more. It was anything but a friendly kiss.

Shizuo spun around, unable to watch any longer. He fled back into the warehouse. Dizzy, fumbling, he managed to ease the door closed so that it would not make a sound.

He fought the urge to tear it all down, the steel beams, the tires, everything. Shizuo blinked and then realized that he had already torn off the metal handle to the door. It was a twisted mess in his hands. He threw it so hard that it embedded itself into the wooden planks where he had been sitting earlier.

He had forgotten what kind of person Izaya was.

He had fallen for the mask that so many other people had seen - had been mesmerized by that charismatic smile, the handsome face, the clever lilt of his voice. Apparently, Izaya could kiss someone and turn around and kiss someone else minute later. He could date girls without caring about them at all, could kiss Shizuo and tease him for the open longing on his face, and still not feel a thing.

Shizuo considered punching Izaya, destroying the clean lines of his face and the bruising that skin, to release the anger that seemed to burn and hurt beneath his skin. He found no satisfaction in the thought. It just made him feel sick. But he also felt sick at the thought of chasing after Izaya's uninterested gaze, being jerked around by his every word, a plaything to be toyed with just like Izaya toyed with everyone else. He had enough. He had to leave.

.

When Izaya came back to the warehouse, he was panting and out of breath. His face was flushed, and he looked strangely desperate. He tried to say something, but Shizuo completely ignored him as he brushed past and started to leave.

Shizuo had more or less stopped trying to figure out what to destroy and what to save. It could all burn. He felt cold and strangely relieved. There would be no more teasing, no more light kisses that left him breathless and wanting more. He was done with this game.

Izaya caught him around the arm as he passed through the doorway. Shizuo shook his grip off coldly.

"Shizuo," Izaya called, sounding out of breath. "Where are you going?"

Shizuo stopped at the sound of a tremor in his voice, the hint of breathlessness. He had imagined it so many times before, what Izaya would sound like after his composure had been messed up thoroughly. Hearing it now, knowing it wasn't due to him, drove him crazy.

"I'm leaving." Shizuo forced himself to keep his hands at his sides. He knew that if he gave in to the sickening feeling inside of him, he would tear this whole place apart. "I'm done with this place. I'm not coming back."

He couldn't. Not while he still alternated between the urge to smash Izaya's face in and the urge to kiss him senseless. Perhaps not ever.

"You must be joking," Izaya's laugh was a knife into Shizuo's chest. "What's gotten into you, Shizuo?"

It was too much. Shizuo spun on him, wanting to press every last bit of his pain into Izaya's skin, wanting every word to hurt.

"You're _disgusting_ ," Shizuo said. He didn't know if he was speaking to himself or Izaya anymore. He relished the look on Izaya's face. For once, that perfect composure was gone. "The things you do, playing with people's lives, treating them like toys to throw away once you're done with them. You like to act friendly with people, but I know how you really are. You couldn't care less about being friends. You just like to mess with people, to see what they would do when they're pushed over the edge."

He felt pretty far over the edge now. Shizuo grabbed Izaya's hand before it reached him, almost made the other boy stumble with how hard he pushed him away. He couldn't stop talking. It was as if a flood gate had opened. "I know about the deals you make with people here. I know about the girls you've hurt. I know about the gambling rings, the fights you organize for the gangs in the area. I know about the information you sell, to anyone that pays. I know everything. It makes me _sick_. _You_ make me sick. I don't want any part of it."

He watched as each word fell like a blow, watched Izaya struggle to understand the hatred in his words. He felt adrenaline roaring in his veins, filling him with exhilaration, as if he were in the middle of a fight right now, but instead of smashing his fist into someone's body, he was making Izaya cry.

The heat of anger in his veins disappeared in an instant, replaced by a cold, numbing horror.

Izaya had his head down, but Shizuo could see the tears on his cheeks. He followed the wet trail they made on Izaya's face. Suddenly, Shizuo couldn't breathe. He felt as if he were being ripped apart.

Without thinking, he reached out to wipe the tears away. He wanted more than anything to apologize, to make things right again. He didn't care, Shizuo realized, about anything Izaya did with the other gangs, about any of the people Izaya had hurt. None of their tears had moved him in the slightest, not compared to the sight of these tears, slicing him to ribbons.

Izaya flinched back, and Shizuo pulled away as if he had been burned.

Izaya was pressing his hand to his midsection, cradling broken fingers with his other arm. The sight made Shizuo nauseous with guilt. He had done that, with that one careless moment. _Right_ , he thought, and suddenly everything made sense now, why he could never have what he wanted. _I'm a monster_.

"Stay away from me," he ordered harshly. Then, he turned and fled.


	5. Aftermath

The first time Shizuo had seen Izaya cry, the aftermath had been a burned warehouse and a hundred broken bodies on the ground. Izaya had been responsible for one half, and Shizuo had done the rest. But even after all that, after he had balled up all of his self-hatred and pain and forced a hundred others to share in it, everything had all been pointless in the end. Izaya disappeared from his life like smoke, a mirage, as if he had never existed.

Shizuo had gone through the next few days in a numb haze. Faces and locations changed in front of his eyes, but never the face he wanted to see in the place he had lost. No one had questioned whether or not he had actually burned the warehouse, not when it was obvious that he had been there, and that he had already hurt so many other people. What was one more crime, added on to all of that?

When it came out that Izaya had been the one to tip off the police, Shizuo hadn't known whether to be angry or to laugh. So it really had all been a game to Izaya, after all, and everything had gone the way he had planned. He had been a fool for trusting that crooked smile, that lilting voice. He had been used as a pawn up until the very end.

For months afterward, he imagined the hundreds of thousands of ways he would exact his revenge, would make Izaya pay. In his mind, he uprooted street signs and buses and railings, threw them at that infuriating smile, chased him over rooftops and alleyways until he had Izaya trapped against a wall, a hand against his throat. He made himself sick, imagining bruises forming on that pale skin, remembering broken fingers and silent tears, but he did it anyway.

His first year in the prison was pure hell. Nobody wanted to be near him, not when a sharp-edged laugh or the glint of something red would send him into a mindless rage. That had been the first time they'd used that strange metal remote him. One moment, he had been about to tear out the iron bars of a window. The next, he was on the ground, with a head stuffed full of cotton, and needles pricking every surface of his skin.

He'd realized, then, that he was no longer in the real world. He had fallen into a special kind of hell, one reserved for monsters like him. He had been locked away so that he could no longer harm anyone, not with his inhuman strength, not with his words, not even with his imagination.

.

This time, he had made Izaya cry again. He hadn't even needed to break any bones. Maybe this time, this entire prison would go up in flames, and everyone in it.

Shizuo had to resist the urge to pull the prison walls down around him, to tear out that stupid metal disc on his neck, to become destruction incarnate, to let the adrenaline fill him up so completely that he could think of nothing else. Izaya's presence completely undid all of the newfound calm he had achieved over the past year, reopened all the wounds he thought that time had healed.

He felt a hook digging in under his skin, with Izaya holding the line on the other side. He wanted to chase him down, whether to apologize or demand answers, he didn't know. Shizuo's fingers clenched into an involuntary fist on the doorframe and came away with cracked and crumbling plastic.

The heavily secured door that led outside the prison mocked him. The mud-eyed man was probably still on the other side, walking free, unconcerned with the destruction that Shizuo was about to cause.

He threw another fist into the wall, cracking the plaster and ending up several inches deep into the walling.

A pale-skinned man poked his head into the hallway. He froze when he saw Shizuo standing there, amidst the wreckage of his temper. He raised his hands cautiously, a gesture Shizuo knew all too well.

Shizuo fought to regain control over himself. This man was one of his fellow prisoners, who was also being experimented on. They were often sent to the lab on the same days. He was one of the better ones. He never taunted Shizuo, never treated him like a caged animal let loose amongst humans, never let his fear get in the way of having a simple conversation. He did not deserve to have his face smashed in just because Shizuo was having a bad day.

"You good, Heiwajima?" The man kept his voice calm, casual. He had a centipede tattooed across his cheek, and his nervous grin made the head of the centipede wriggle.

Shizuo drew in a deep breath. There were no guards around to see him freaking out, but he did not want to spend the rest of the day in a cotton-stuffed haze, or with a pounding headache splitting his head in two. The first few times he lost his temper had made the guards in this place extremely trigger-happy with that metal remote of theirs.

"I'm good, Kotonami." He pulled his fist out of the wall. The crater it left was a jagged mix of concrete and plaster and wood.

Kotonami eyed the wall and tried not to sound too strangled. "Did that informant say something to you? I saw him go by just now."

Shizuo was unprepared for the despair that nearly overwhelmed him. He leaned against the broken wall, wanting to tear himself apart. He had to apologize, had to make things right again, but he didn't know how. If only he hadn't lost his temper, if only he could be sure _why_ Izaya was here, if only he could be sure that he wasn't being lied to -

A note of alarm entered Kotonami's voice. "Heiwajima-san? Are you alright? Did he do something?"

Shizuo didn't answer. Kotonami's accent thickened like it always did when he got angry. "Do you need my men to take care of him for you? I've heard nasty things about that one, I have. Says he's got the face of an angel but does things that even a devil wouldn't do. Says he can talk someone into killing themselves or trick you into gambling away your soul. If he's been at you, we can do something about that silver tongue of his. Cut it off, maybe, or just -"

" _No,_ " Shizuo snarled. "Don't touch him. Anyone who hurts him will answer to _me_."

There was a moment of stunned silence. Kotonami cleared his throat. "Okay boss," he said faintly. "I didn't know you two were - were like that."

Shizuo laughed bitterly. "Like what?" He looked at Kotonami, saw the assumption on his face. He wanted to say something sharp and cruel, something that Izaya would come up with on the spot, but nothing came to mind. "No," he said finally. "We're not - no."

There was a long, awkward pause as they both realized how ridiculous that sounded. Kotonami let it pass, though.

"What were you two fighting about?" He leaned casually against the wall, more relaxed now that Shizuo was no longer in danger of exploding.

"He said he got thrown in here for betraying the yakuza," Shizuo said tiredly. "But I saw him just now talking to someone who works for them, and they -" He remembered the way those mud brown eyes had lingered on Izaya, remembered Izaya's fingers on the buttons of his shirt, and he wanted to tear something apart. He knew he had overreacted. The sight had dredged up a particularly painful memory. "It seemed like they were still working together."

Kotonami frowned. "That's strange. The guards said that he was on death row. I heard them taking bets on how he was gonna die."

Shizuo felt a chill. "What do you mean, on death row? Why?"

"Apparently he did something big enough to piss off all of the upper echelons. It caused quite a stir. The bosses apparently needed time to settle their internal ranks before executing him." Kotonami looked inordinately pleased with the thought of the yakuza in chaos. There had been no love lost between him and them. "Besides, the yakuza would never work with a traitor. Traitors die, that's their number one rule."

There was a crushing weight on his chest. Shizuo struggled to breathe. In his head, he ran through every single interaction with Izaya, saw his actions in a different light. Izaya hadn't been lying, he hadn't been acting, hadn't been trying to manipulate him. With a jolt, Shizuo remembered Izaya's eyes, blank and hopeless. _They're going to kill me_. He had been telling the truth.

Maybe then, last night, what he said had been real. Maybe -

Shizuo turned abruptly, following in the direction that Izaya had gone. _He's finally stopped lying to me_ , he thought, _For the first time in my life, I know for sure that he won't lie. I have to talk to him._

Suddenly, more than anything, he wanted to see Izaya's face. No wonder things had been so different last night. The friendly, fake mask that Izaya wore was gone completely. All of that anger, the bitterness, the pain at the sight of him - all of that had been real. But that meant the guilt had been real too, and the devastating way he had looked at Shizuo, as if he _cared_.

He wished that he had Izaya safely in his arms, could hide him away from the world for just a brief moment. Now that a death sentence loomed over them, suddenly nothing else seemed to matter. He had to confess, properly this time, all of his mixed up feelings of helpless adoration and jealous desire. He needed Izaya there, beside him, to reassure himself that Izaya was still there, alive and well.

_I need to find him._

.

Izaya avoided Shizuo with practiced ease.

He had several disadvantages. First, he actually hadn't taken the time to fully explore the prison yet. This was Shizuo's territory, not his. Second, they were both trapped in the same small space, with no buildings to scale nor any alleys to escape into. Third, Shizuo had an uncanny ability to figure out Izaya's general location whenever he stayed in one place too long.

So, after leaving the hallway, Izaya made a beeline to the most crowded area he could find. Shizuo would not follow him there, or if he did, the guards would most likely keep him away.

That ended up being the common area in the prison. Half of the space was set up like a gym, with weights and bars scattered across the floor. On the other half, men gathered around plastic tables, with metal legs that were bolted to the concrete floor. Their white tops that had been cleaned over and over again until they faded to a motley grey. There was a single guard, safely settled behind the window where prisoners got and returned their meal trays.

Izaya grabbed a tray. He took his time in selecting his target. Nobody lingered over their meal. There wasn't much enjoyment to be had over mashed potatoes and gravy, with a teaspoon of peas on top.

Eventually, he found who he was looking for. A dark-skinned, rugged man with a wolf's head tattooed on his arms came in and sat down with his food. He was immediately joined by a cluster of similarly tattooed men, clustering together a bit protectively. Izaya stood and made his way toward them, eased his way into their conversation with a polite request. They already knew who he was, so they accepted him easily.

He felt cold, mechanical, going through the motions of cloaking himself in conversation and gathering information. The men around him asked a few questions, clearly wondering if his reputation was well-deserved. He entertained them with a few stories, showed a friendly, harmless face, even as part of him watched for their reactions with a faraway, distant detachment. It was like he was working again as an informant, watching everything in the world go by impartial eyes.

As far as he could tell, no one else had a metal disc anywhere on their body. Nobody had any information about it either, other than the fact that Shizuo Heiwajima had one, and that it knocked him down when the guards used their metal remote. Nobody even knew what it was called.

Plenty of men had scars, however. Some were facial scars, courtesy of knife fights or growing up in a rough area. Others were surgical scars, some with stitching still in. The only surgical scars that showed were ones around the face and the neck, which meant that there was surely more beneath layers of clothing.

It was a surprisingly small prison, containing less than a hundred prisoners. Izaya supposed that they all must be temporary subjects, rotated in and out at Nebula's discretion. That, or they all displayed some inhuman quality that Nebula wanted to study. Given that most of the men seemed to be ordinary convicts, augmented with surgical scars, Izaya would bet on the former possibility.

Once, he felt the telltale shiver of Shizuo's eyes on his back, searching for him. But he pretended not to notice and kept talking amicably to the man in front of him about something stupid, like why his smuggling business hadn't done too well in yakuza territory. He looked like another member of the group, sounded just like them. Even so, he felt strangely out of sorts when the sensation disappeared, and he felt Shizuo moving away from the common room and deeper into the hallway.

After waiting for a count of thirty, Izaya got up and followed. If he meant to avoid Shizuo, that meant this prison had become a battlefield. And the first rule of battle was to always keep moving.

He started exploring the entirety of the prison, or at least the parts of it that he was able to access. Most of the hallways that he went down contained row after row of prison cells. Some men slumbered the entire day away in those cells, while others had books and weights and other small creature comforts. A few looked up when he passed by, but when he didn't stop and didn't stare too long, they ignored him.

The hallways closest to the prison entrance led to most of the larger areas, such as the common room. Another led to an infirmary, closed off by double doors and translucent glass panes. Izaya didn't bother going through just to see row after row of white hospital beds. Another hallway led to a series of conference rooms, just like Izaya had expected. Most were empty and locked. Izaya briefly considered finding a way to pick the lock, but gave up on the idea quickly. He needed something better.

.

In the hallway full of cells, Izaya came to stand in front of a large man sitting despondently on his bunk bed. The man was still physically imposing, but time in prison had atrophied his muscles, had bent his shoulders into a hunch, had sunk his eyes deeply into his skull. He had long, stringy hair and a mythical-looking bird tattooed on his arms. His skin had sores all over it, and his fingernails were nearly destroyed from constant picking.

After a moment of consideration, Izaya pulled out a piece of paper folded into a white square. He showed it to the large man. "Is this worth anything to you?"

The man caught sight of the letters embossed on the paper. His eyes went wild with sudden recognition. "Where did you get that?" He asked, surging up to his feet, so intent that he barely kept his voice below a whisper.

Izaya closed his fist around the drug packet. He had guessed correctly. Any prison run by the yakuza was sure to have scores of drug addicts, and several guards must have set up a distribution of Heaven's Slave. He had not expected to get any use out of it when he had swiped some from Kine's stash. But he had suspected that it might become useful in the future. He felt no satisfaction in being proven right, so soon. He just moved on with his plan.

"What's your name?" He asked the man.

"Gin," the man replied. He was picking at his fingernails again, reopening scars. Izaya made his tone cold and businesslike.

"Well then, Gin, I need you to do something for me."

.

He found the hallway that led outside, into a fenced off open space. The wind blew fitfully over the barbed wire fences, the guard posts, made dust rise from the packed, bare earth. There were a few men playing some sort of game near some tables and benches, but Izaya didn't join them. He looked up and considered finding his way up onto the roof. It was only one story high - it would be easy. He had scaled much higher walls even as a child. But Shizuo would find him easily there. He was used to seeing Izaya in high places.

The door opened behind him, and Izaya didn't have to look to know that it was Shizuo. He was on the roof faster than he could blink, keeping well away from the edge, his heart in his mouth. _Fuck_ , that had been close.

Shizuo came out into the open yard, distinctive with his height and his yellow hair. The men playing their game stopped when they saw him.

"Want to join, Heiwajima-san?" One yelled, throwing the ball up in the air and catching it.

Izaya lay with his back against the concrete roof, fighting the urge to look down. He heard Shizuo walk over to them, and the low murmur of conversation that resulted. This was his only chance, but he had to _move_. _Now._

He swung his legs over the edge of the roof, preparing to jump. But he hesitated a moment too long, caught by the sight of Shizuo talking so familiarly with the men that surrounded him. They all clustered around him, instinctively drawn to his steady presence. He had never seen Shizuo so relaxed around other people.

Shizuo cut off mid-sentence, turned, and looked right at him. Sitting on top of the roof, Izaya froze.

He studied the expression on Shizuo's face, waiting for anger, frustration, or hatred. But Shizuo's expression didn't change. For a long moment, they just stared at each other across the open space. _Why hasn't he come to kill me yet?_ Izaya wondered, _Why is he just standing there?_ But he couldn't move, couldn't run, not with all of his joints locking up in fear and anticipation. Shizuo didn't move either, perhaps sensing that the slightest movement on his part would send Izaya flying away.

"Hey!" One of the men on the ground exclaimed. They had seen him too. "What the hell are you doing up there?"

Shizuo turned to look at the man who had spoken, and that was enough of a distraction. Izaya was off the roof in an instant, and opening the door back into the dimly lit hallway. Gin was waiting there, arms folded, shuffling his feet. As soon as Izaya came in, Gin barred the door with his body, bracing his back against it so that no one could enter it from outside. He held out his palm and spoke in a hiss. "Now _give it to me._ "

Izaya handed over the packet of Heaven's Slave.

It was going to be a fair trade, he told himself. It wasn't like he was intending to use the Heaven's Slave on himself, anyway, not unless he really gave up hope. He had only palmed it from Kine-san's stash in case it ended up being useful. In this place, something like drugs only had value to drug addicts, and Gin-san had been just one of many vacant-eyed prisoners Izaya had passed by. This would work, at least temporarily. Shizuo wouldn't destroy the door, not with a guard on the outside. The guard wouldn't come in until 5 in the evening. He would be safe until then.

"Hold the door," he said to Gin. He tried not to shiver at the first bang of a fist against the door. "Don't let anyone in until the end of the day. Understand?"

Then, without waiting for an answer, Izaya went to find someplace to be alone.

.

He ended up in the prison library, which was really just a corner with two bookcases, for the rest of the day. No one came to bother him, not even after 5 PM.

When the time came for the cell doors to close, a guard came out of the doorway, a baton in his hand, making his rounds. He stopped dead when he saw Izaya sitting alone in the library.

"What the hell are you doing here?" The guard sounded incredulous. "Heiwajima-san was looking all over for you earlier today." He poked his head back into the hallway to see if there was anyone else around. When he saw no one, he fixed Izaya with a look that demanded an explanation.

Izaya gave him a twisted smile. "I guess no one ratted me out. Maybe they all felt sorry for the guy on death row? Or maybe they just didn't want to help Shizuo get his hands on me."

The guard looked disbelieving, but then he seemed to notice something on Izaya's face. He stiffened, looking almost a little embarrassed. "Oh."

 _That_ was not a reaction Izaya had expected. "What?" He snapped. He brought his fingers up to his face. He was not sure what sudden conclusion the guard had jumped to.

Hesitantly, almost unwillingly, the guard snapped a picture with his cellphone and showed it to him. When Izaya saw the picture, a wave of understanding and embarrassment ran through him.

 _Holy shit, I've been walking around all day looking like_ that?

He had a giant bruise on his left cheek, clearly made by someone's hands. There were hickeys running all along the side of his neck, down to his collarbone. A vivid red mark stood out against his throat, and his mouth was shadowed with bruises clearly made by forceful kisses.

Izaya touched his face again, wondering how the hell he hadn't noticed before. It hadn't hurt, but then again, he had been so distracted all day that the pain in his body had taken a backseat to everything else.

"I can take you to the infirmary," the guard said stiffly. "You can stay there overnight instead of the cell with Heiwajima if you feel that you need medical attention."

Izaya's gaze swung to the guard in absolute disbelief. Realization struck him like lightning. "You think _Shizuo_ did this?"

Holy shit. Everyone had. No wonder Kine had been so fucking distracted, he had barely even noticed Izaya swiping stuff from right under his nose. Izaya felt another realization slam into him, making his head spin. He felt as if he had just woken up from an underwater dream, had finally regained his sense of reality. Not just everyone - _Shizuo_ had reacted that way, as if he had covered Izaya with horrible wounds instead of kisses. Had he actually blamed himself? Maybe that was the reason for his reaction, not rejection. Shizuo had always believed so readily in any evidence painting him as a monster. Maybe he hadn't known that Izaya had wanted it. Maybe -

"I have to go," he said, abruptly. He stood, ignoring the guard's befuddled expression. He nearly slammed into the wall on his way out, but by the time he was through the door and into the hallway, he was going at a run.


	6. Resolve

When Izaya arrived at the doorway of the cell, he was panting and out of breath. Before Shizuo could get to his feet, Izaya slammed the door shut and pressed his back against it. Shizuo would have to physically shove him aside if he wanted to leave. He was not sure that he could really stop Shizuo if it came down to brute force, but the message was clear.

_We need to talk. Now._

Shizuo came over to stand in front of him immediately. His hands trembled a little when they came up to Izaya's face. His fingers traced the bruise on Izaya's cheek, gentle and probing. Izaya was already breathing hard from the exertion of running, but now it seemed as if he would never be able to get enough air.

Shizuo started to speak, but Izaya beat him to it. "Shizuo, after all this time, do you _really_ not know how I feel about you?"

There was a pause as they stared at each other, both teetering at the edge of a precipice, about to fall.

"No," Shizuo breathed. "I didn't know." His hands had stopped moving. His palm settled under Izaya's ear, warm and steady against the side of his neck.

Izaya closed his eyes briefly as heat flared all along his spine, down his back. There was no way Shizuo could miss the trembling in his body, the shudder in his breath. When Izaya opened his eyes, Shizuo's gaze was heated, his eyes were dark with slowly dawning realization. He leaned in for a brief kiss, careful and sweet. When he licked softly into Izaya's mouth, Izaya moaned helplessly into it. He broke off the kiss, trying not to fall into a mindless daze, trying to keep his thoughts intact.

"Are you serious?" Izaya asked flatly, and only a little breathlessly. "I thought I made it _really fucking obvious_ last night."

Shizuo flinched, his expression filling with guilt. When he spoke, he stopped and started frequently, struggling to get the words out. "I couldn't tell. I could never tell, with you. Last night, I convinced myself that it was all real, that you really did want me. But I was so afraid that you would change your mind. I wouldn't let you talk. I wouldn't even let you move. When the morning came, I wondered if it had all been wishful thinking on my part, if I had wanted you so badly that I -"

Shizuo couldn't finish. He shut his eyes against the pain and guilt that seemed to tear through him. When he pulled back, Izaya seized him by the collar and tried to drag him back down. "Then _why did you leave?_ " He wished that he didn't sound so strange, so broken.

"Because I love you," Shizuo said. "I've wanted you since the moment we met, but every time I touch you I leave bruises. Whenever you leave me, you're the only thing I can think about, and it drives me crazy. Whenever you come back, everything just goes out of my head."

In the ringing silence that followed, Izaya wondered if he had somehow found himself in a dream. He stared at Shizuo's face, looking for any signs of a lie, finding none. He suddenly felt dizzy.

Shizuo took a deep breath. “I’m sorry I never said anything. I love you. I know it doesn’t seem that way, with all those horrible things I said and did to you. But I’m telling you the truth.”

Izaya barely heard what Shizuo said. He was reaching, pulling, and suddenly they were kissing, until the lack of air made Izaya dizzy, until he could barely tell up from down or north from east. Afterward, he clung on to Shizuo fiercely, knowing that he would fall if he let go.

Shizuo held him for a long time. Then, in a low voice, he asked, "Did you really not know?"

Izaya shook his head. "I had no idea. I thought you hated me."

"Even back then?"

There was a long pause. Izaya struggled to find the right words. "I kept trying to find out, but I could never be sure."

Shizuo pulled back, sounding a touch scandalized. "What do you _mean,_ you could never be sure? You -"

He cut off as Izaya kissed him violently, a recreation of last night's desperation, repeating the way his teeth had caught on Shizuo's bottom lip. In case Shizuo still didn't get the point, Izaya moaned with as much heat as he could manage, right into his ear. Shizuo pinned him convulsively against the door, and they lost themselves for a long while in blank, mindless heat.

When they separated, Izaya forced Shizuo to focus, to listen to him. He was breathing hard, but he couldn't keep a tremor of hurt out of his voice. "You kept _leaving_. I tried everything, but I could never get you to stay with me. Tell me, do you _really_ not want me or am I doing something wrong?"

Shizuo took a long moment to respond. He was too busy pressing kisses into Izaya's skin, grinding forward and pinning him against the cell. When finally spoke, he sounded feverish and dazed with heat. "I won't leave, this time. If you want me to stay, I'll stay."

Izaya felt the words crackle through him like electricity, pulsing through him with almost unbearable intensity before dissipating through the cold, firm press of the iron bars behind him. He pushed forward, making Shizuo step back, forcing himself to clear his head. It still took him a long moment before he could find the words for it. "What, all this time, did you want my permission?" He met Shizuo's gaze directly. It threatened to consume him whole, carve out everything under his skin and replace it with pure heat. Izaya's voice broke with desperation. " _Yes, for fucks sake,_ Shizuo. _Please._ You're the only one I've ever wanted. I want you to stay with me. I want you to fuck me."

Shizuo's intake of breath was more than just shock. His hands were on Izaya in an instant, skimming up his sides, pushing up his shirt, fingers trailing carefully against the skin. Izaya shuddered under his touch.

Izaya's back slammed against the iron bars behind him, and for a moment Izaya had no sense at all of what was going on. Then, he realized that Shizuo was undressing him, first pulling off his shirt, then unbuttoning his pants.

"Are you sure you want me?" Shizuo breathed. His eyes traveled over Izaya's bare skin, and his touch was gentle, carefully avoiding his bruises. "I promise I won't hurt you this time. I'll be careful."

His gaze darkened as he pulled Izaya in, pushed him onto the bed. He followed close behind, stripping off his shirt.

" _Yes_ ," Izaya tried to help with the undressing, but his wrists were caught and Shizuo pressed to his sides, with a gentle push to tell him to _stay there and don't move_. "You can stop being careful around me. It's fine. I can take it."

Shizuo's hands immediately were on him again. Izaya arched into his touch. How could he _not_ want this touch, the way it sent sparks of electricity through him, the way it chased away all of his anxiety.

"Good," Shizuo murmured, low, a tinge of dark satisfaction in his voice.

To prove exactly how much he wanted this, Izaya reached down and pressed his palm against the front of Shizuo's slacks. He watched, fascinated, as Shizuo's breath caught and he shuddered into Izaya's touch. He was already hard, painfully so, enough to make Izaya dizzy with imagination. He wanted their clothes to disappear. He needed Shizuo's touch, ached for it. Every single barrier between them was quickly becoming a nuisance to be violently removed.

Shizuo seemed to feel the same. His movements were becoming less careful, less gentle. He pulled off the rest of Izaya's clothes with blind haste, pressed his palms against every inch of newly exposed skin. For a moment, Izaya shivered under his gaze, too overwhelmed by the sensation of being watched with such heated interest.

He helped Shizuo push the rest of his clothing off, felt a sharp spike of desire go through him at the sight of Shizuo's cock. In the next instant, he was shocked by the pressure of hands on his thighs, pushing his legs open. He trembled with heat.

" _Please_ ," he gasped.

Shizuo answered him immediately, winding a hand into his hair. "Breathe," he ordered. Izaya obeyed instantly, responding to the demand in that tone of voice. Shizuo waited until Izaya stopped trembling. He kept pressing gentle kisses into Izaya's skin. " _Breathe_ , Izaya. I need you to relax."

His sudden touch made Izaya tense, but Shizuo worked him open slowly, patiently, with words as well as fingers. "I won't hurt you. I won't let anyone hurt you. Relax. I got you. You're mine. You've always been mine. Take a deep breath. Relax for me, open up for me. I'm gonna make you feel good. Trust me."

Izaya felt warm all over, drunk on the sound of Shizuo's words and the feel of his fingers. He clutched at Shizuo's arm, almost begging. "Shizuo, fuck me, _please_ , I -" Shizuo pulled back, making Izaya cut off with a gasp. He was about to start again when pressure against his entrance made him stop short. A wave of heat rushed into his head, made his breath come faster.

His vision blurred as Shizuo pushed into him slightly, and for a moment all he could do was gasp wordlessly over Shizuo's shoulder. When he spoke again, he was all breathless heat and ragged desire, "I need you inside me, Shizuo. _God_ , I want you so bad."

Shizuo's hands on him tightened convulsively. " _Stop_ ," he sounded desperate, feverish with heat, losing control. " _Stop, Izaya_. Hold still. I need -"

Izaya didn't hear him. He had wanted this for too long. He shoved his hips up, forcing Shizuo deeper inside of him. In the next instant, his head banged against the metal railing at the head of the bunk bed. His entire body seized with heat. A sharp spike of pleasure drove him out of his mind, whited out the rest of the world. Above him, Shizuo's eyes were blown-open until the dark of his irises almost swallowed up his pupils. They fixed on Izaya with a possessive intensity that made him shiver.

"I'm going to hurt you," he gritted out, but his voice was so full of heat that Izaya just shuddered in anticipation. He was visibly holding himself back from moving, even with his cock sheathed inside Izaya as far as it would go.

"I don't care," Izaya gasped, too far gone to think of anything past the heat in his veins, the hard ache of pressure from Shizuo's cock pressing down into him. He almost went mad with the desire for more friction. His head fell back against the bed again, and every breath just turned into pure adrenaline as soon as it entered his lungs. He was rocking up against Shizuo in tiny, helpless motions, unwilling to wait, unable to stop.

Shizuo's fingers splayed against the sheets next to Izaya's head. In the midst of his heated daze, Izaya realized that Shizuo's fingers were shaking. His entire arm was shaking with the effort of remaining still. Something coiled tighter in his gut at the sight, and Izaya almost sobbed with the impossibility of it all. He was so far over the edge that he should have been spilling his release onto Shizuo's skin, should have come a long time ago. He was not sure if anything could pull him back from the brink now.

Shizuo pulled back a tiny bit, just an inch, but the relief made Izaya cry out. His cry was swallowed by Shizuo's kiss, and the tremors in his throat just turned inward and made the rest of his body tremble helplessly. He bit at Shizuo's bottom lip, and Shizuo's ragged inhale made all of his muscles weak. The sound filled him with a fire that seemed to rage across every inch of skin and set him alight.

He felt his entire body squeezing down around Shizuo's cock, and the hard pressure inside of him seemed to throb in time with his racing heartbeat. His mouth fell open in a wordless cry of relief as he felt the beginnings of sweet release building up in a tidal wave.

Then, with both perfect and terrible timing, Shizuo slammed his hips forward, driving his cock deeper into Izaya's body and cutting off that possibility. Izaya went insane. He dug his fingers into Shizuo's sides, begged him to move, shoved mindlessly against his body. Shizuo groaned wildly. The sound of his voice against Izaya's ear turned into pure liquid heat that poured down Izaya's spine.

"Izaya," he said, and Izaya's inhale turned into helpless shudders of heat. His arm slipped down from the headboard to catch against Izaya's shoulder. He leaned in for a dizzying open-mouthed kiss, and Izaya offered him everything from the heat of his lips to the deepest drag of his tongue to the low note of satisfaction in the back of his throat with absolute surrender, with no resistance at all.

Words no longer existed. All he had were moans that sounded like pleas, the drag of his fingers across Shizuo's skin, the open angle of his throat and the arch of his back as he urged Shizuo to _move_. He was rewarded with hands that pressed him back down into the bed, kisses that stole his breath, and _finally_ , the drag of friction against his inner walls as Shizuo began to move his hips rhythmically. Izaya almost sobbed with relief.

He wanted to cling onto this moment for as long as possible, but it felt like hanging off of a cliff by his fingertips. He never even had a chance. Izaya felt everything inside him go tight at the possibility of release.

Shizuo made a desperate sound over him, warm and shuddering, a note of warning in it. He leaned forward to press his body against every inch of Izaya's skin, and the weight of him, the drag of heat and friction was finally too much.

He came so hard that he almost fainted. Black spots swam in his vision. When he finally came back to himself, Shizuo was pressed as tightly against him as two human bodies would allow. Izaya could feel every forceful thrust jarring right into his skull, the dull thud of pleasure ringing through his body and keeping him in a daze of white heat. He was still gasping for air, an eternity later, when Shizuo finally stalled his hips and came with a helpless shudder into his relaxed and open body.

Even afterward, Shizuo kept Izaya down with repeated kisses, soft and drunk with pleasure. Izaya had no energy left. He just felt like a warm puddle of sensations flickering through him. He kissed Shizuo back slowly, lazily, tasting the warmth of those lips, clinging on to the sweet taste of his mouth for as long as he could.

.

After Izaya's head had cleared a little, he sat up carefully. They both slowly untangled themselves from each other. Shizuo tried to keep as still as possible, but that just made Izaya laugh.

"You can move now, I'm safely out of the danger zone." He inspected his body and found no new bruises or broken limbs. Izaya's grin widened, and he kissed Shizuo softly. "See? I'm not injured at all."

Shizuo's eyes flashed with exasperation and an echo of the possessive heat that had consumed him earlier. "It wasn't that easy. Stop grinning like that, Izaya. I really could have killed you just now."

To prove his point, he set his fingers against the head of the bunk bed. Izaya looked back and discovered a twisted mess of metal that suddenly sheared off into two pieces. His grin went a little sideways at the sight, but to his surprise, a new surge of heat flickered through him. It was still in his gaze when he turned to look back at Shizuo.

Shizuo laughed his expression. "You're insatiable, Izaya." He began searching for his clothes, flung somewhere in the darkness. "But then again, you've always been crazy. I really shouldn't be surprised."

"Not necessarily," Izaya purred, trying to strip the heat from his voice and failing. "I could just be crazy for you. It's hot that you want me so much. Am I really that irresistible to you, Shizuo?"

Shizuo grinned at him as he pulled on his shirt. "Yes, you are."

Izaya took too long to reply. He had not expected that smile to leave him breathless with heat all over again. In the end, however, he came up with something to say. It wasn't all that clever, or witty, but it made Shizuo laugh, and in the end that was all that mattered.

.

For a long time, Izaya just drifted on the border between sleep and wakefulness. Shizuo had his arm around Izaya's middle, pulling him against his body as they lay on the bed. He trailed his fingers against the soft skin on Izaya's stomach, right above his hip. Against him, Izaya made a soft, contented sound.

Shizuo pressed a kiss against his shoulder. "Are you sure you're okay?"

Izaya wriggled a little, checking for injuries. Nothing hurt. "I am more than okay," he announced. He let his head fall back against Shizuo's body. "I just had the best fuck of my life. What have we been _doing_ these past few years, Shizuo? We could have been doing this the entire time."

Shizuo squeezed him to tell him to stop wriggling. It was a moment before he spoke again.

"Maybe, but only if I had known that you liked me. At the time, it was pretty impossible to tell."

Izaya tried his best to sound offended, sleepy as he was. "What are you _talking_ about? I thought I made it completely obvious. I tried to seduce you almost every day. I kissed you every time I got the chance. Do you expect me to believe that you _really didn't know?_ "

Shizuo turned to bury his face in the sheets. "I wondered about it," he said, muffled. "But you said that you acted that way toward everybody, that it was a joke. I thought you were just messing with me to get a reaction."

Izaya blinked sleepily. He _did_ remember saying something similar, spinning out lie after lie to cover up the way his body had given him away. It had all been nervous chatter, empty babbling. Had Shizuo really believed that?

"Oh," Izaya replied. He cleared his throat, to get rid of the sudden flush of embarrassment. "No, I only did that to you. I was pretty desperate for you back then. I did some pretty crazy things to try and get your attention."

Shizuo huffed a laugh. "I really must have been blind."

Izaya gave him a little slack. "I was also in denial about all of it. I made up a bunch of excuses, both to you and myself. I didn't realize what I was doing until it was too late." His voice went quieter. "I didn't make it easy for you to like me."

"It wasn't that," Shizuo said. "I always liked you. I just thought that you did it to everybody and I wasn't special. Like -"

He cut off sharply. Izaya felt him kill the words in his throat, felt Shizuo tense with sudden unexpected anger. His heart skipped a beat as Shizuo tightened his grip possessively.

He waited a moment, before asking gently, "Like who?"

"Like the man from this afternoon, for example. That man, he looked at you like - " Shizuo couldn't finish. He deliberately relaxed his grip, and Izaya started to breathe again. "Who was he?"

Izaya felt himself come wide awake. His heart began to beat wildly in his chest. He turned around, and threw his arms around Shizuo's neck.

"You _idiot_ ," he said, his voice muffled against Shizuo's shirt. "He's _bald_. He's a middle-aged man. _Ew._ Really, Shizuo?"

Shizuo barked out a short laugh, and his arm came around Izaya to settle gently around his waist. Izaya arched into his touch and began rewarding him with soft kisses under his jaw.

"I've actually seen him before," Shizuo admitted. "Two years ago, when you were still making deals in that warehouse of yours."

Izaya barely paused in between kisses to say, "It was your warehouse. Everyone left me alone because you were there."

Shizuo squeezed him warningly to tell him that he was being serious right now. "He kissed you, back then. You two seemed to be close."

The kisses stopped. Izaya felt a shock run through him like lightning. "You _saw_ that?"

Shizuo pressed his hands harder into Izaya's skin and nodded silently. He pressed his lips into Izaya's hair, and his next words were muffled and uncertain. "At the time, I didn't know what to think, so I just jumped to the worst possible conclusion."

Izaya pressed his face harder into Shizuo's chest and shuddered at the memory. His voice was quiet. "I see."

He made his voice firm. Shizuo deserved an answer. "That man's name is Kine. He's my contact with the Awakusu-kai. He's the one who introduced me to all my yakuza clients. Back then, he was trying to recruit me into the organization as both an informant and a whore. He said the two jobs worked pretty well together."

Shizuo's hands tightened convulsively, possessively around him. Izaya went dizzy with the pressure. He pressed back against Shizuo reassuringly, until Shizuo relaxed. He took a deep breath.

"I said no, but I don't think he ever stopped seeing me in that light. I was...young and stupid and vulnerable, back then. You see, there was this guy I was in love with. I kept on trying to seduce him, but no matter what I did, he wouldn't touch me. I couldn't understand why. It drove me crazy. So I tried to flirt with Kine once, to see how he would react." Izaya's mouth twisted in disgust at the memory. "I stopped him before he got too far."

"What was he doing here today?"

Izaya told him everything. The guard with the red sun tattoo, the calm threats that Kine had delivered in his emotionless voice. The Heaven's Slave drug. He shivered into Shizuo's touch, but he didn't feel cold at all. He suddenly felt safe and warm. Shizuo was curling up protectively around him, his hand coming up to stroke Izaya's hair. The touch felt incredibly reassuring, soothed away all of his fears.

At the mention of immortals, Shizuo dipped down to look at Izaya with an incredulous expression. "Hang on. Kine actually believed you when you said that?"

Izaya tried to hold it back but ended up bursting into a fit of giggles. He bit down on his bottom lip when Shizuo glared at him sternly. It had been a serious question. "I had to come up with something," he explained, struggling to get the words out through his laughter. "The yakuza is interested in immortality. They must be, or they wouldn't be giving Nebula so much funding. There's no way they would pass up an opportunity to get their hands on a _true_ immortal, let alone a whole group of them."

Shizuo blinked. "Are you saying immortals actually exist?"

Izaya tried to give him a mysterious smile. "Why shouldn't they? _You_ exist, and you are so far outside the limits of human understanding that you might as well be immortal."

"I'm not immortal," Shizuo protested. "I age just like anybody else. I'm really not that special."

"Yeah," Izaya fought down the childish urge to bite down on Shizuo's shoulder, to try and fail to break the skin. That would show him.

After a long while, Shizuo admitted: "I guess my strength is a little unusual."

Izaya fixed him with a baleful glare but ruined it with a yawn. "It's not just your strength," he said blurrily, exhaustion making him more honest than he intended to be. "It's your durability. It's freaking amazing. I wasn't there for the beginning of it, but I watched you get hurt over and over again when you were still fighting gangs. Every single time, you got a little less hurt, grew a little bit more indestructible, and it wasn't because your fighting skills were getting any better."

Shizuo smiled into Izaya's shoulder. "My very own stalker," he said drowsily.

The silence that fell afterward was quiet and peaceful. Shizuo pulled Izaya closer, and Izaya settled in against him comfortably. He felt safe and protected, even though in the back of his head Izaya knew he was still in danger, knew that it wouldn't last. His last thought before falling asleep was _God, if there is one, please don't let him ever leave me again._


	7. Nebula

He woke up to the sound of boots crunching on cement. The dull thuds reverberated up and down the empty hallway, purposeful and unstoppable. There were multiple people coming. Izaya felt a chill start from the back of his neck and run down the length of his spine. He had known that they would come, but he had not expected it to be so soon.

He got up calmly and inventoried his belongings. Nothing useful, nothing special, nothing of any value to anyone.

Shizuo shifted a little in his sleep, and the sound of his breathing did something to ease the strain in Izaya's body. He lay on his back, one arm splayed out where Izaya had been moments ago. He looked completely relaxed, open and vulnerable while asleep. Izaya spent a long time, ignoring the sound of incoming boots, watching the sunlight play out on his face.

Shizuo woke up slowly, drifting awake by small increments. When he opened his eyes, Izaya was stunned all over again by the way they caught the light, turned into burnished gold.

"Hey Izaya," he said in a low, sleepy rumble.

"Hey Shizuo," Izaya replied. He barely kept a tremor out of his voice.

At his tone, Shizuo tensed with alarm. He heard the footsteps approaching and seemed to come alive in an instant. In one motion, he rolled off the bed, landing in a defensive crouch. Izaya was physically shoved behind him. The first pair of boots came into view.

When he saw who was outside, his voice came out in an angry, threatening growl. " _What are you doing here?_ "

The people who assembled outside of his cell weren't all guards. There were three others, wearing white instead of black. They carried no batons, wore no tattoos, but they seemed to stand at the front of the group. They wore their long white lab coats with silver buttons that shone in the dim light. The guards stood resolutely, with faces set with determination. The men in white wore white masks over their faces. Their eyes were blank and serious, they showed no hint of personality at all.

"Izaya Orihara," one said. "We need you to come with us."

.

"Can I refuse?" Izaya asked.

At the same time, Shizuo seemed to grow large enough to block Izaya's entire field of view, bristling like a threatened animal. The sheer hostility in his tone almost made the guards flinch back. " _No. Stay away from him._ He's not here to be one of your _lab rats_ , he's not one of yours. Find something better to do with your time."

At first, Izaya didn't understand. Then, his mouth went dry. The silver buttons on their coats weren't simple round disks - they were lapels in the shape of an ankh _._ _They aren't from the yakuza_ , _they're from Nebula. They want to bring me in for their experiments._

Just to be sure, he asked Shizuo in a low voice. "You know them?"

"They bring me in for testing every month." Shizuo's voice crackled with scorn on the word _testing_. Izaya remembered the metal disk, the wires underneath it, burrowing into Shizuo's skin. His own skin prickled with alarm. He knew what was about to happen.

"Wait," he touched Shizuo's back, gentle and reassuring. Maybe this wasn't the worst case scenario that he had been expecting. Maybe there was still a way out of this. "It's okay."

Shizuo refused to back down. " _No,_ " he said, sharp and threatening. "They're not doctors, they don't practice any medicine. What they do is a fucking joke. They'll hurt you."

The guards were opening the door. One man entered, holding handcuffs meant for Izaya. The men in the lab coats had their heads together, discussing something. Izaya felt that everything was happening too fast. He couldn't get a read on those men in white, couldn't figure out what they were here to do.

"Move aside, Heiwajima." The guard's voice was rough. "We're here for your cellmate."

"It's okay," Izaya said, getting a little desperate. "I'll go with them anyway. They won't kill me."

"If they're here to try," Shizuo's grip on the metal frame was starting to warp it out of shape, his face was a mask of anger. "I'll kill every last one of them."

At this, the guards seemed to freeze. He dropped the handcuffs on the ground, fumbling for his keyring, for the metal remote.

There was a moment of silence as a horrible realization dawned.

Izaya lunged, but Shizuo beat him to it. The cell door came apart with a crash, metal bars hurtling off to the sides. A guard was sent flying out of the cell, crashing into the opposite wall of the hallway. He slid down, facefirst, out like a light. Someone screamed. A bright, electrical explosion lit up the side of Shizuo's neck. For a moment, all of his veins glowed white. The image seared itself into Izaya's eyes.

The effect was immediate. Shizuo staggered as if he had been struck, gripped his head in both hands. The metal disc on his neck continued to light up wildly. Shocks of electricity lit up the side of his face in the darkness. He collapsed.

Izaya screamed something, he didn't know what. Someone caught him around the neck and brought him crashing into the ground. His vision went black for a moment as his head struck the ground.

.

When Izaya woke up, he was handcuffed to an operating table. He felt like he was underwater, but his insides felt like they had been scraped out and replaced with dry sand. He leaned over, trying to throw up, but nothing came.

In the middle of the white, sterile operating room, a man wearing a lab coat sat on the only chair next to a desk, and long legs crossed at the ankles. His fingers drummed rhythmically on the desk in long, slow beats. He regarded Izaya with open curiosity, eyes bright and unblinking. Izaya recognized him as one of the men who had come to get him at his cell.

"Who are you?" Izaya asked. His throat rasped as if he had not had water for days. "Where's Shizuo?"

"Call me Yagiri," the man said. He was in his late middle ages, barrel-chested and greying a little. His voice boomed in the small space.

"A few days ago," he said, "You rigged one of your backup servers to send emails containing some very incriminating data to all of the police departments and media outlets in Ikebukuro." There was a note of detached admiration in his voice, of faint praise. "The good news is, Kine was able to go in and clean it all up before anyone saw. The bad news is, this has made the yakuza _very_ thirsty for your blood."

Izaya felt numb all over. His head rang. Distantly, he tasted the blood in his mouth. Yagiri had not mentioned Shizuo. Had he been the one to use the remote? _I'm pretty thirsty for blood too_.

"Now, I expect them to be here any minute now," Yagiri indicated the large double doors, the red neon sign that glowed IN OPERATION, DO NOT DISTURB. "And I expect that they'll kill you on the spot, without giving you the chance to talk."

Izaya's head finally began to clear. He stared at Yagiri, fascinated, unable to believe what he was hearing.

"So, I thought I would take matters into my own hands, and question you a little myself."

"Your name is Seitarou Yagiri," Izaya said abruptly. "You had your own pharmaceutical company before you were bought out. Since when did you start working for Nebula?"

Yagiri raised a metal remote, one with multiple dials instead of a button, and Izaya screamed as pain consumed his entire body. His flailing almost overturned the table, scattered silver tools and needles, and syringes everywhere. The world rang, vibrated with pain until he could no longer hear anything past his own screams.

When it was over, he lay on his side, his wrist chafed bloody and red against the handcuff, curled up and trying to stop shivering.

Distantly, he felt for the side of his neck, felt the telltale cool of a round metal disc implanted into his skin.

"This is one of our own inventions," Yagiri wriggled the device in his hands. "There's no official name for it - it's not ready for the market just yet, but internally we refer to it as an Obedience Disk. You saw the prototype used on Heiwajima-san just a moment ago. What _you_ have is the finished version. We've actually learned how to control the degree of pain experienced."

To demonstrate, he flicked the dial, just a little. Izaya immediately curled up as pinpricks of pain started all over his body, an itch that went on and on. " _Turn it off_ ," he gasped. It was forced out of him. " _Stop. Turn it off._ "

The pinpricks of pain deepened into throbbing, shocking jolts that whited out the rest of the world. It got worse, and then it got worse again. Izaya felt as if his bones were cracking apart, shearing off skin and bone and muscle. His head felt as if it were about to split.

Yagiri was saying something or trying to, but Izaya couldn't hear a word of what he said. Instead, he tried to accept the pain instead of fighting it, focused every ounce of attention on the man holding the device in front of him.

Seitarou Yagiri. Izaya understood him, probably knew him better than he knew himself. He was Nebula's rock-star scientist, the yakuza's big investment, the reason why this prison even existed. He had grown obsessed with human experimentation, gotten drunk with the glory of being tasked to find the secret to immortality. Nothing would excite him more than the possibility of finding inhuman creatures, people with strange abilities, or immortals. He would stop at nothing to get his hands on them.

And now, with Izaya inadvertently dangling that very thing in front of him, Yagiri felt _so close_ to finally achieving his goal, he could almost taste it.

The overwhelming sense of pain disappeared. Izaya fought to unclench his fists, to stop trembling. He raised his head to fix Yagiri with a murderous glare.

"Is this what you do to Shizuo?" He asked quietly. "Your _experiments_ , your stupid search for _immortality_. He's the only monster you have, right? You wouldn't be able to resist. Have you ever wondered what dangers it might pose, to keep poking at somebody like him?"

Right on cue, the double doors burst open, almost splintering off of their hinges. What followed after, covered in plaster, breathing heavily, was the most beautiful person Izaya had ever seen.

.

" _Izaya,_ " Shizuo's scream filled the air, drowning out the last residues of pain. Yagiri was on his feet, white-faced and incredulous. He fished for another remote in his pocket, a simpler metal device with just one button on it. But when he pressed it, Shizuo just staggered on his way in, and nothing more. He was unstoppable, a force of nature.

With one swipe, Shizuo swatted everything out of Yagiri's hands. They clattered to the ground, and Yagiri screamed in pain as he curled around his broken fingers, his bloodied wrists. "H-how?" he kept whimpering, as Shizuo tore off Izaya's handcuffs, ripped off the rest of his restraints.

Izaya reached up to him immediately, pressed trembling fingers to Shizuo's face, checking for injuries. The metal disk on Shizuo's neck still crackled and spat electricity, but Shizuo seemed to be ignoring it completely. Other than that, Shizuo had no bruises, no scrapes, not a single sign that anything had broken skin. Only his eyes showed signs of pain. They roved over his face, frantic with worry.

When Shizuo lifted Izaya's face to inspect him for wounds, he caught sight of the metal disk implanted on his neck. His intake of breath was sharp and agonized, a hiss of sympathetic pain. "I was too late," he whispered.

Izaya didn't bother correcting him. He just twined his arms around Shizuo's neck, kissed him with breathless joy, ran his fingers across every glorious inch of unbroken skin he could reach. He needed to convince himself that Shizuo there, alive and unhurt.

Then, he noticed Yagiri inching across the floor, toward a metal remote with a dial on it.

"One second," Izaya nearly fell on his way down from the table, despite holding on to Shizuo for support. Even with wobbly knees and unsteady feet, he was still faster. Before Yagiri could reach the remote, Izaya stepped on his wrist, pinning it to the floor like a snake.

Yagiri squealed in pain, but Izaya showed no mercy. "Yagiri-sensei," he said, sweet and friendly. "I believe you wanted some information out of me. The names of the immortals who hired me to investigate the yakuza, right? Well, you're just in luck. I need some information out of you too, and I'm willing to trade."

Without waiting for an answer, he shoved Yagiri back into his chair. He didn't bother with handcuffs. Rolling him over to the computer on the nearby desk, Izaya continued in his friendly tone. "Now, about this new invention of yours - I believe you called it an Obedience Disk? Tell me what exactly it is, and how to get rid of it. If you don't, I will let Shizuo have you. Remember, you can't control him anymore. If you _do_ , I will give you names."

Yagiri flinched away from looking at Shizuo, even as he curled around his injured hands. He seemed to be more shocked than afraid. Izaya pointed to the computer, deciding to stick with simple instructions for now. "Tell me the login and password."

Shizuo had come over to stand by them now. He brushed Izaya's hair out of his face, settled one hand on Yagiri's shoulder. That, more than anything, seemed to jolt Yagiri into complying.

When they were in, Izaya took over the computer keyboard. He would be faster, anyway. As he spoke, he began to open files and windows, setting up a data transfer, sending instructions. "Where do you keep your information about these Obedience Disks? User guides, specs, that sort of thing."

They went through a series of hidden folders, all with disturbing names. Izaya noticed a group of files with Shizuo Heiwajima as a label. He selected them all, deleted them instantly. Maybe he would ask Shizuo about it later, but he couldn't afford to let the information fall into the wrong hands. Yagiri gritted his teeth when he saw what Izaya was doing, but he kept talking.

"Click on that file," Yagiri instructed, raspy and unwilling. "It should be a large text file, and when you open it up, it should look like a manual."

"Thanks," Izaya pushed him. The chair rolled several feet away, with Yagiri in it. Shizuo went to go get the handcuffs.

The files would take more than an hour to upload, so Izaya spent some time hiding the process, and then forgot about it. It would finish, or it would not. That was out of his hands now.

The manual for the so-called Obedience Disks, however, was far more interesting. Nebula had clearly been planning on making it available on the black market. Yagiri's nature shone through in several parts. The language read more like a technology showcase than an advertisement for a torturing device. Izaya skipped over the parts he didn't need, spent a long time figuring out exactly what it was that Nebula had implanted into him.

Shizuo came over when he was almost done. A backward glance showed Yagiri, bound and gagged, with the metal arms of his chair bent around his arms to restrain him. Izaya broke off from his reading to press a kiss against Shizuo's jaw, to reward him for being so _delightfully_ clever.

"Can you remove it?" Shizuo asked.

Izaya blew his cheeks out, let out a gust of breath. "Yes. Mine will be easy because it was only implanted recently. They put something really nasty in yours though."

He showed the screen to Shizuo.

The Obedience Disk had originally intended to be a mind-control device, attaching to a person's nervous system and hijacking the signals delivered from the brain. Izaya supposed that the fatal design flaw was right there - it couldn't really be a mind-control device if it completely ignored the signals from the brain. However, the furthest the researchers of Nebula had gotten was how to stimulate pain. Izaya's device was fairly simple - just attach it to the nervous system and modulate the amount of sensation you wanted the pain receptors to receive. Shizuo's prototype was a messy, hacked together design where wires would grow along the nervous system over time, like fungi with roots that burrowed along a certain path.

Shizuo's face paled at the sight of those pictures. When he spoke, however, he seemed calm. "Well, it's a good thing we're in a hospital room. Let me remove yours first."

"We don't have a lot of time," Izaya protested. "I'm not a threat to them, you are."

"Mine doesn't work anymore," Shizuo reminded him. "It gets less and less effective every time they use it on me. I can barely feel it anymore." He was already leading Izaya over to the operating table, pushing him down to sit. "And yours will take a lot less time to remove. Tell me what to do."

"It's actually pretty simple," Izaya said. He nodded to the metal remote that still lay on the ground. "That remote also functions as a key. Get a pen. There's a switch that you need to toggle."

Shizuo came back to him with both remotes and a pen. Izaya turned them over in his hands. The warmth of Shizuo's body, standing so close to him, drained away all of his unease. He leaned into Shizuo as he worked, comforted by his steady presence.

"Here," he said. He handed over the metal device with a dial to Shizuo. "Now, hold it up against this disk and press the button."

After a long pause, Shizuo nodded. He pressed the key to the metal disk on the side of Izaya's neck. They both held their breaths.

In the dead silence, there was a faint mechanical click. When Shizuo removed the key, Izaya reached up and tugged gently at the disk. Pain flared down the length of his spine.

As he screamed, he felt Shizuo's fingers replace his. An instant later, the pain was gone. Shizuo held the metal disk in his hands, looking shaken. A long silvery wire hung down from it. Izaya caught his breath. "Thank you," he said, a little hoarsely. "I guess it still hurts when you try to remove it."

Shizuo turned and hurled the metal disk away. It buried itself into the ground, right next to Yagiri's foot, with all the force of a bullet. Yagiri flinched, and his chair rolled away from the metal disk for a couple of inches.

"Your turn," Izaya said.

They exchanged places.

Shizuo laughed a little unsteadily as Izaya began turning the other metal remote around in his hands, looking for a place to put the pen. "Did you realize?" He asked. "We had one of these keys this entire time. You took one off of the guards, didn't you?"

"If only I had known," Izaya replied dryly. "It would have saved a lot of heartache and unnecessary scrambling for survival on my part. All we needed was a pen, and I could have just asked for one of those."

Shizuo shook his head. "I'm beginning to think that the yakuza completely underestimated you."

Izaya chucked him fondly under the chin, barely restrained himself from giving him a kiss. Time was too important to waste on flattery, right now.

He found the switch, raised the key to Shizuo's neck. It was clearly an older design, mechanical instead of electrical. The switch had changed the shape of the metal cylinder. The button remained on one side, but now the other side extended out into three metal hooks, like tweezer prongs. They would fit perfectly into the grooves of the disk.

"Do you trust me?" Izaya asked.

"I do," Shizuo answered without hesitation.

Izaya stuck the key down, heard the metal click of prongs sliding into grooves, and then twisted slightly to lock it in place. "Don't move," he ordered, and then began to pull.

The first slide of the wire against skin must have been excruciating, but Izaya went slowly. If any piece broke off, it would cause all sorts of problems.

Shizuo stared resolutely into the air and didn't move a single muscle. Crackles of electricity were arcing off of the wires, clearly activating wildly now that they were being tampered with. Izaya shoved away all of his feelings, froze them so that they could be dealt with later. He could not afford trembling hands right now.

The metal disk lifted off of Shizuo's skin. Beneath it was a wriggling mass of clear wires, all still attached to Shizuo's skin, where they burrowed into his veins. "Easy," Izaya soothed, but his eyes never left the side of Shizuo's neck. "Almost there."

Another inch of wire came out, then another, and then another. The corners of Shizuo's eyes creased with strain, but he didn't look afraid. He didn't give the slightest indication that wires were being pulled out of his skin, dragging against every open nerve-ending.

Another inch. Izaya tried not to think about how far those filaments must have grown in the past few years. He caught that thought, bottled it up, shoved it into the darkest corner of his mind.

Another inch. One string finally ended, popping out of Shizuo's skin and immediately curling up into a tangle. Izaya began to breathe easily, finally, when -

 _BANG!_ The sound of footsteps came down the hallway outside the door on their left, brisk and hurried. A low murmur of voices. Shizuo didn't startle, but his eyes flew to Izaya's face and stayed there.

Izaya moved until he was pressed up against Shizuo's body on the table, standing between his open knees. He pressed his forehead to Shizuo's. "Don't move," he whispered. This had to be done carefully. Another string ended.

The voices were coming closer and rising into alarmed shouts. "Bring everyone you can!"

The first guard reached the door and yelled: "Stop what you're doing, right now!"

Izaya pressed hard against Shizuo, fixed his eyes on the threads that he was hiding from view with his body. It was almost done, but this was also the most delicate part. _Please don't move,_ he prayed, hoping that Shizuo would understand his intent. He didn't care how awkward the position was. He just needed a few more seconds, needed to keep the wires out of sight.

"The fuck are you doing?!?" The guard's voice was a high-pitched shriek. He sounded like he had backed away, and was trying to cover his eyes. "Get away from him, now!"

It was enough. Izaya teased out the last wire, checked one final time to make sure it was all out, and then threw the metal disk onto the ground. It clanged onto the floor and bounced several times, landing in a far corner.

He stared into Shizuo's eyes, elated. Shizuo's eyes, staring back, were wild with joy.

"I can feel it," Shizuo whispered. "It's out!"

Then, he was kissing Izaya for all he was worth, threading a hand into Izaya's hair and pulling him closer than he had already been before. They both ignored the screaming guards on the outside. Shizuo groaned, low and deep. His next inhale was long and expansive as if it were his first breath in two years.

Beside them, cries of panic rang high and shrill.

"Hit it! Hit it!"

"I am! It's not working! _Hey -_ "

" _Gimme that!_ Fuck! Why isn't it activating?"

"Where the _fuck_ is my -"

" _Guards!_ We need backup here!"

Yagiri was making muffled sounds, desperately rolling his chair out of the way of something. He crashed into the wall closest to the double doors, nearly fell over with his haste.

Izaya twisted and threw himself behind the table, flattening himself to the ground. The guards opened fire. From the corner, he had the perfect view as Shizuo stood up, casually picked up the man firing his gun, and then threw him right through the destroyed double doors.

From then on, it was pure chaos. Shizuo's presence, which usually filled the room completely, now dominated the entire hallway. He roared as he swung his fists with enough force to shatter bones, taking down two or three men with a punch. They all went down in a heap, some with their weapons still at their sides.

Izaya picked his way over to the double doors and cautiously poked his head out into the hallway. He was met with a beautiful sight. The guards, wearing protective gear and helmets, had all lined themselves up for Shizuo. All Shizuo had to do was barrel straight through them. They were flung in all directions, some slamming into the ceiling, some crashing backward.

After standing up and dusting himself off, Izaya began to sprint down the hallway after Shizuo. The floor was so littered with bodies that he could hardly avoid them, so he didn't. He stepped on wrists and torsos and backs, not on purpose, but not really feeling bad about it either. As he left the ruined lab behind him forever, Izaya started to laugh.


	8. Revenge

Shouting filled the hallways as they entered the common room. Prisoners woke up quickly to the fact that there was an escape attempt going on, and they went wild. It was still morning, but the cell doors had already been opened. Prisoners streamed out of the hallways into the common room, rioting, looting, tearing everything they could reach into pieces. Amidst the sounds of mindless joy and thoughtless violence, the guards shouted for backup. Above it all were the sounds of Shizuo's roaring rampage of revenge. The sound made the air thrum with all the force of it. Izaya had never felt so alive.

The second he left the hallway, however, an arm hooked around his neck and brought him crashing down to the ground. One of the guards pressed a pistol to the back of his head, and screamed: "Stop! Stop right now, or I kill him!"

Izaya tried to jam his elbow into the man's body, but his arm was caught and wrenched onto his back. He cried out in pain.

Shizuo didn't reply. He didn't even turn to look. Instead, he grabbed one of the gym weights lying on the floor next to all the exercise equipment and hurled it like a frisbee. The guard above Izaya screamed and dove off to the side, letting go of his pistol completely. The other prisoners were on him in an instant, tearing away his clothes, kicking away his gun.

"Good aim," Izaya said. His eyes fell on the weapon laying on the ground.

Shizuo picked up another weight, tossed it onto a group of guards blocking the exit. They scattered in all directions, hopelessly disorganized. Before they could regroup and begin firing, Shizuo was among them, a whirlwind of fists that delivered inhuman force with every hit.

"Follow me!" Shizuo yelled and then disappeared down the hallway leading to the exit.

Izaya scrambled up a little awkwardly. He plunged down the hallway after Shizuo, keeping his eyes peeled for any guards that could still come out of nowhere. They were going to make it out, Izaya thought with disbelief. It was actually happening.

.

Shizuo strode into the hallway. He completely ignored the metal bars, the scanner that the guards used with their badges, all the bolted doors. He just squared his shoulders, his eyes alight with a kind of wild glee, and smashed the door open with his fist.

The door crumpled like a human who had been struck and folded in half by the blow. The hinges blew off in random directions. The bolts simply sheared off or took off the concrete around them. The dust from the smashed concrete and plaster began to fill the hallway.

Alarms blared immediately, but there was nobody left to respond to them. The prisoners cheered and screamed, but they gave Shizuo a wide berth, so as to not get caught up in his whirlwind of destruction. Only Izaya stayed close, following right behind him.

There was a single guard sitting at the entrance area, behind a glass counter. He watched, openmouthed, as Shizuo and Izaya strode into the room. Shizuo completely ignored him as he turned toward the lockers lining the opposite wall. Silently, Izaya pointed out which one had contained his things. Shizuo's fist went through the aluminum like it was paper. The front of the locker came off as he drew his fist back.

"Thanks," Izaya said, high pitched and a little giddy. He couldn't help but watch delightedly as Shizuo began ripping out the other lockers, even when Shizuo began to growl in frustration. He couldn't seem to find the one that had contained his things.

Izaya pulled out his black shirt, his jeans, his belt. He knew that his phone wouldn't be in there, but he patted his pockets for it anyway.

Finally, Shizuo turned on the guard, who was still sitting frozen behind his glass wall. "Which of these lockers has my things?"

"T-top left, sir." The guard responded quickly.

Shizuo turned and smashed his fist into the locker indicated. Izaya fought down the desire to break out into hysterics. He focused on pulling on his clothes and then hit upon an idea.

"Give me your phone," he said to the guard at the window.

The guard gaped at him, but after a quick glance at Shizuo, he pushed a cellphone through the counter window.

"Thanks," Izaya chirped. He dialed in a number that he had never called before, but had memorized.

Shizuo had finally found his things. As he changed, Izaya leaned against the glass and watched him with open interest.

The phone was picked up, and Izaya's attention immediately switched over to the task at hand. The voice on the other end sounded surprised and a little suspicious, but Izaya was certain that they would do what he asked.

"Hello," Izaya lilted into the phone. "I need you to upload something to your website for me. If you do, I promise that you'll see something _super interesting_."

.

"What was that all about?" Shizuo asked.

"Business!" Izaya laughed, opening the last door. It swung out into the fresh scent of a breeze, the open air, and Izaya stopped dead.

He was staring down the barrel of a gun.

"Hi there," Kine said.

Shizuo saw Kine, but he saw the gun immediately after. His violent lunge was immediately aborted.

"Stay still, both of you," Kine said. His voice was oddly relaxed. He sounded as if they had just run into each other on the corner of a street. The pistol was aimed squarely at Izaya's head. "I'm glad you were the first to walk out, Izaya. I'm not sure if bullets work on that monster."

When Shizuo moved slightly closer, Kine raised his gun and fired. The bullet grazed Izaya's cheek, buried itself in Shizuo's shoulder. Shizuo screamed but came no closer. Izaya almost turned to look, half frantic with worry, but the gun was back and trained on him again.

Kine gave Shizuo a fixed stare. "Get back, or he dies."

Izaya felt the anger in Shizuo, felt it rise like a wave and break on the threat in those words.

"Now," Kine said to Shizuo. "I want you to head back and hold off any other prisoners that are thinking of leaving this way. If a single one makes it through those doors, you know what happens next."

There was a moment of agonized silence. Kine met Shizuo's stare and didn't bat an eyelash. "Answer me if you understand," he said.

"Yes," The sound of bitter defeat in Shizuo's voice tore a hole through Izaya. He felt Shizuo turn to leave, to hold off the prisoners who had been following them.

Izaya was about to speak when he saw Kine's finger tighten on the trigger. He remembered that Kine had come here to kill him, and shut his mouth. Kine smiled with cruel-edged satisfaction. It was the most intense expression on his face that Izaya had ever seen. He watched Izaya with sharp eyes that missed nothing. They took in the black bruise on his face, the new wounds and scrapes from earlier this morning, the open wound on the side of his neck where the metal disk had been. When his eyes flicked back to Izaya's face, he looked grim with understanding.

"Much better," he said after the silence had stretched. "You always did talk too much. I take it that Yagiri-sensei has been questioning you?"

Izaya hesitated, but Kine nodded at him to speak. "Yes." He answered, and then couldn't help saying: "I didn't give him anything though."

"Was it because you didn't break? Or was it because you had nothing to give?"

There was no point in lying now. "I don't know any immortals," Izaya said. "If they exist, they are far away from Ikebukuro, and they haven't made themselves known to me."

Kine sighed with a hint of exasperation at his past self. "I thought that might be the case." He focused on Izaya again and watched him silently for a moment before coming to a decision. "Now, one last question. Why did you betray the yakuza?"

Izaya drew in a deep breath. "It's a long story."

"Then make it short."

Izaya tried not to look at the gun and focused instead on Kine's face. "Haruna Niekawa. Ruri Hijiribe." He saw the flash of recognition in Kine's eyes after each name. "Do these names sound familiar to you?"

"Yes," Kine said, a little impressed. "They were both Nebula's list of candidates for testing."

"I know, I figured it out eventually," Izaya said. He did not say how recently. "I didn't connect the dots at first," he said. "But I tend to keep track of everyone who goes missing in Ikebukuro, especially from prison cells."

The first clue had been the disappearance of Haruna Niekawa. On paper, she was just an ordinary high school student, long brown hair, average looks. She was suspended for having an illicit affair with a teacher at her school and apparently had a mental breakdown. That should have been the end of it, but instead, she was arrested to breaking and entering into her teacher's home. From there, she disappeared from the face of the earth.

The second case was Ruri Hijiribe, the pop-music teen idol heartthrob, who was substantially more well-known. Her shocking disappearance, right after her first big break, at the start of her meteoric rise to fame, caused quite the stir in Ikebukuro. Fanboys lined the streets, weeping and wailing for their lost Ruri, blaming the police for suddenly arresting her without warning, all for the harmless crime of being in the vicinity of drugs. A city-wide investigation ensued, but nothing ever came out of it. Ruri Hijiribe disappeared out of her cell and never came back.

Izaya knew the score. He knew they were probably dead, or worse. That was usually how things were. He felt a vague sense of frustration about having two unsolved missing-person cases sitting at his desk, but nothing more.

The last clue had been a vital piece of information, given to him by a trusted friend: Ruri Hijiribe was part-dhampyr. Haruna Niekawa wielded a parasitic demon blade.

That was when he realized: Something existed in the dark underbelly of Ikebukuro, hidden and completely out of sight. It targeted inhuman creatures, monsters, and immortals. Those two girls had been dragged into some pipeline that sucked prisoners out of their cells and into some forgotten hellhole.

After that, everything had clicked together into one horrifying picture. After that, Izaya had added one more name to that list.

Shizuo Heiwajima, the yellow-haired delinquent who smashed tables and threw chairs through windows at the slightest provocation. Shizuo Heiwajima, who had gotten a fearsome reputation by fighting gangs after school winning no matter numbers they brought. He was the demon who owned the warehouse behind the school until it had burned down. He possessed an unnatural strength, enough to fight and defeat a hundred delinquents at once. He had been arrested on charges of arson and multiple counts of assault and battery. Then, he had disappeared from his jail cell, never to be seen again.

And Izaya had put him there, with the help of the yakuza.

.

The silence that followed was broken by Shizuo finally coming back. He wasn't even breathing hard. Behind him came the muffled sounds of prisoners banging against the refastened door. Slowly, he came to stand next to Izaya's shoulder. Kine eyed him, unimpressed. He decided that Shizuo had been neutralized as a threat, and shifted his gaze back to Izaya.

"You have got to be kidding me," Kine said flatly. He looked at Izaya for a moment, then said: "And there was never any five million."

"There was never any five million," Izaya confirmed.

“This was revenge,” Kine said, still in that flat tone. “For something we did two years ago when you were still in high school.”

“Yes,” Izaya said.

Kine never moved a muscle, but Izaya suddenly had the mental image of him tearing out his nonexistent hair in pure exasperation.

"Don't get me wrong," Izaya added. "I had other reasons for wanting revenge on the yakuza. I never liked you guys, you know."

The rest of the yakuza executives had been powerful, old, traditional-looking men. They justified everything they did with the belief that they were responsible for protecting the city. In reality, they held the criminal underworld in a tight, suffocating grip, until nothing was out of their sight and nothing interesting could happen. They hated phenomenon outside of their control, and so they just tried to stamp it all out.

In short, they had all been utterly boring and predictable.

"I never expected you to be so childish," Kine said.

Izaya stared at him. He let his voice grow exasperated. "Childish? Kine, _really_? _I'm_ the one that's childish? Do you realize how absolutely ridiculous this whole partnership with Nebula is? They fooled you, promising immortality in exchange for an unlimited supply of human resources. The yakuza have grown arrogant, Kine, and you've all lost your common sense. First, there was Heaven's Slave, then your attempts to achieve mind control, and now this search for immortality. It's like you're trying to become gods."

"That's funny," Kine responded dryly, "Coming from a brat like you who has a god-complex."

"Takes one to know one," Izaya shot back and sucked in a breath as he wondered if he had gone too far.

Kine did seem to consider shooting him, at least a little. But he ended up quirking his lips a little, which was his version of a laugh. "Like I said," he murmured, almost to himself. "You would have done well in the yakuza."

"You mean, working for you?" Izaya didn't even try to hide his scorn. "You wanted to whore me out for information. Did you really think I could have survived that?"

"You seemed fine with doing it here." Kine sounded totally unconcerned. "You would have gotten used to it eventually."

Izaya pressed back hard against Shizuo, who had been quiet for this entire conversation up until now. Shizuo's body was nearly vibrating with anger, and Izaya didn't have to look back to see the murderous aura. He could see it clearly in his head - Shizuo losing his temper, Kine squeezing the trigger, Izaya getting a face full of metal bullet. It was a lose-lose situation, especially for Izaya.

"You've got it wrong," he said simply, quietly.

Kine didn't raise an eyebrow, but the suggestion was there. "You're telling me you were in love with the person you framed and got sent to prison? You sold him out, Izaya. The first job I ever gave you, the one with getting delinquents into the system, you betrayed him, didn't you? It was one of the first things you did."

Izaya suddenly felt cold. He had been able to ignore the guilt for so long, pushing it to the back of his mind, but it all came crashing back now. He tried to regain his equilibrium. When he spoke, his voice was smaller than he wanted it to be. "I know. But I loved him anyway, even back then."

For a long moment, Kine just stood there, watching Izaya struggle and fail to regain his composure.

"Well," he said finally. "That's a shame. Looks like I'll have to kill you both after all."

He watched the terror play out on Izaya's face, watched him crumble under the overwhelming fear of death. Everyone eventually caved once they realized that they were about to die. He had seen that look on so many other faces before, that look of total despair, searching for any way out. He let the moment stretch out, savored it to the fullest.

"Last chance," he said to Izaya.

For a moment, Izaya didn't move a muscle. He just watched Kine, bleak and hopeless. Finally, with a small movement that almost seemed to break his spirits, he took one small step forward.

The sound Shizuo made seemed to be ripped out of him, a small desperate cry. Izaya nearly stumbled, but he continued moving toward Kine. His eyes were wide and dark with terror. He was trembling, shaking so hard that he could barely move. But still, he continued, walking until he stood right in front of Kine, surrender in every line of his body, the loose curl of his hands at his sides, the angle of his shoulders.

Kine's eyes blazed with triumph. Pointing his gun at Shizuo, he strode forward and grabbed Izaya's face, but Izaya was faster. He reached behind him and pulled out the gun he had taken from the guard. In one smooth motion, he pressed the muzzle against Kine's chin and fired.

Kine only had a moment to realize what was happening. His eyes turned into pinpricks of fear for an instant, and then everything was a mess of blood and bone and brain matter.

.

Izaya threw the gun away. He realized that he was trembling so hard that it was a wonder he could have fired at all.

Shizuo reached out to touch him, but Izaya staggered away. He couldn't look at the mess he had made. The body had collapsed to the ground, unrecognizable. Izaya tried to find some of that cool detachment Kine had always praised him for. He found nothing of the sort. He felt like vomiting might help, but he couldn't even open his mouth.

"Izaya," Shizuo's voice was tight. His voice rose. "Izaya!"

In the next instant, he was spinning Izaya around to face him. Shizuo's fingers probed his face, found the graze on his cheek. The wound on his shoulder wasn't serious. The bullet seemed to have stopped several centimeters into his skin. Other than a thin trickle of blood running down his arm, there was no sign that Shizuo had just been shot. Shizuo's hands moved on to probe Izaya's sides, checking for injuries. Izaya came back to his senses, just a little.

"He deserved it," he said firmly, more to convince himself than anything. As he spoke, his words gained strength. He directed it all toward the mess on the ground. "You know what? I'm _sick_ of you, Kine. You act like you're this amazing savior, but you're really just a perverted old man that likes having power over people. I'll _never_ let you touch me again. So _keep your filthy hands away from me_."

Shizuo grabbed him by the shoulders, ended up holding him in a tight embrace. "It's okay," he repeated over and over. "It's okay, it's okay, it's okay."

Izaya buried his face in Shizuo's shirt, feeling too sick to say anything else. Shizuo eventually just picked him up and carried him in his arms like a child. Izaya closed his eyes and just focused on trying to breathe.

"Get me out of here, Shizuo," he said eventually. "Get me as far away from here as you can."


	9. Return

By the time they returned to human civilization, it was all over the news - the yakuza was simultaneously imploding, being attacked and facing a crackdown from law enforcement.

The contents of the black disk drive had become public knowledge by the next morning, sensationalized and summarized into hundreds of little blurbs on online posts, journals, and newspapers. Internet forums had thousands and thousands of posts, talking about the news. A video post compiling all of the most damning clips went viral.

The police scrambled to mobilize in time. Before the sun had reached the midway point, twenty arrests had been made.

Some of the escaped prisoners had gone straight for revenge against those they deemed responsible. That meant calling up all their friends and acquaintances and allies, aiming them at known establishments where yakuza members were known to frequent, and setting them loose. Their rioting hadn't stopped in the prisons - now it spread to the streets of Ikebukuro.

Internal tensions amongst the yakuza had been stretched to the breaking point by recent betrayals, and recent revelations. The loss of a high-level executive only served to further suspicions against each other. They were completely caught by surprise.

The collaboration between the yakuza and certain members of the police force came to light. More specifically, there had been a pipeline of human trafficking, where individuals disappeared from prison cells and ended up in the hands of the yakuza. The public outcry was loud and deafening. Luckily, among the contents of the black disk were the names and locations of several secret yakuza prisons. They would be raided and reclaimed as soon as the police could get there. Prisoners who had been given unnaturally long sentences, prisoners who had failed to show up in court, or had simply never been given a trial date, were all flooding back into the system. The paperwork was going to be unbelievable.

Everyone on the net went into a frenzy, trying to find out who had leaked all of those files. With enough people searching, someone eventually traced the IP address back through multiple hops to a rural location. To everyone's surprise, the owner of that computer was just a kid, a high schooler who didn't even live in Ikebukuro - Ryuugamine Mikado. He had no connection whatsoever to the yakuza, no connection at all to any of their victims or their businesses. He was just an ordinary nobody, although one with a memorable name. People instantly assumed that he was a fake identity, a cover-up.

A little further digging revealed that Ryuugamine Mikado was not alone. In fact, it seemed that he was little more than a front man for a crowd of a thousand anonymous usernames, an online group named the Dollars. People began to call the Dollars ‘the colorless gang', the invisible force that had eyes and ears throughout the city. Before long, it became common knowledge that the Dollars had taken down the yakuza.

From there, the story took on a life of its own. The story was this: anonymous members of the Dollars had gathered countless pictures and videos, enough evidence to blackmail some of the most powerful people in the city. They held their cards close to their chest, steadily growing in power until they had become strong enough to stage a revolution. They were now the strongest gang in Ikebukuro, but they weren't your typical schoolground bullies. They held no territory, fought no turf wars. But they were everywhere. They were an invisible, floating, anonymous force.

.

Izaya lost his train of thought as the door to the hotel room banged open, and someone came in loaded with plastic and paper bags. He shut his computer case reflexively but relaxed once he saw that it was Shizuo.

"Did you know that Kasuka became an actor?" Shizuo burst out as soon as he had entered the door. He seemed to be struggling to decide whether or not to be proud, incredulous, or both. He set down his bags on the second bed. They tipped over to spill out their contents - food and drinks and temporary supplies, packaged in colorful plastic. The sudden burst of activity that had entered his life overwhelmed Izaya after long hours of silence.

"Yeah," Izaya said, a little stunned. _He came back_.

He realized that Shizuo was still speaking. "- and he's really famous now." Shizuo finished. " _Kasuka_. An _actor_."

One of the first things Shizuo had done once they'd reached the city was to go off and find his family. They probably hadn't even known he was alive until that morning. As wonderful as family reunions were, Izaya had decided to sit this one out. It felt a little disingenuous to meet Shizuo's family when he had been the one to put him in prison.

Izaya wanted to smile, to laugh and share Shizuo's amusement. But he couldn't help the sudden wave of guilt and dread that washed over him. He couldn't help but hear Kine's final words in his head. _You sold him out, Izaya. You betrayed him._

He didn't want to become someone like Kine. He had seen himself in the older man's face when he had died. Himself, a little bit older, power hungry and arrogant with the certainty that he could defeat death, could become a living god.

Shizuo seemed to catch on to Izaya's mood. He settled himself against the wall and looked at Izaya with sudden trepidation in his eyes.

"What is it?" he asked at last.

Izaya took a deep breath. He had completed his revenge against the yakuza, but he himself still had a debt to pay.

_I have to pay for it, somehow._

"I was planning on leaving for a while," Izaya said. "I have enough saved up over the last two years to treat myself to a rather extended vacation. The yakuza may have taken a blow, but they are sure to have allies in this city that I'd rather not run into."

Shizuo nodded. It made sense. The look in his eyes did not go away.

"You don't belong in prison," Izaya said. "In fact, the government owes you money. It's called Lost Years compensation, and you're eligible for almost two years of it. If you stay here and file for it, you'll be able to get a lot of money back. You'll be able to get your life back, more or less the same as it had been when you left."

He took a deep breath. "I'm sorry for what I did to you. I betrayed you, I put you in prison, and I put you on Nebula's radar. The least I can do is give you your life back, just like it was before I made such a mess of it. If that is what you want, then I can make it happen."

There was no answer. Shizuo stayed silent and waited. Izaya was starting to feel the strain of the distance between them. It seemed insurmountable. What was he even doing? It would never happen.

"That said, I do have a job opening right now." Izaya resisted the urge to look at Shizuo. He made his tone as businesslike and casual as possible. "The yakuza have a pretty long reach, and I doubt I'll be safe no matter where I go. I could use a bodyguard."

Shizuo's sigh was part relief and part exasperation. All the tension seemed to melt away from his body.

"I know it's stupid," Izaya started.

Then Shizuo's hands were on him, sudden and shocking. Izaya nearly jumped out of his skin, and then burst out into surprised laughter as Shizuo trailed his fingers up his sides, tickling him. His laughter cut short when Shizuo covered his mouth with a kiss, long and deep and steady.

"Does it pay well?" Shizuo asked, and then swatted away Izaya's hands as they batted at him. He laughed when Izaya's mouth fell open in shock and mock indignation.

"That's not what you're supposed to say," Izaya tried to sound scolding, but ruined it by laughing as Shizuo pushed him flat on his back. The weight of his body was warm and comforting, a solid counterpoint to the dizzy rush of exhilaration rushing through him. "You're supposed to say: ‘ _I'll never leave you, Izaya. I'll follow you anywhere you go._ ' You're supposed to be all melodramatic, and then I'll make fun of you, and you'll get angry and then -"

"I love you, Izaya." Shizuo pressed the words against Izaya's skin like a promise. The thrum of those words struck against Izaya's ribcage like a bell. "You kept the gangs away from me when we were in school. You took down the yakuza for me. You broke me out of that prison. I'll follow you anywhere you go."

Izaya wound his fingers into Shizuo's hair. He couldn't find the words to say, so he just responded like he always did - with kisses and caresses, all conveying the message of _I love you, I adore you, I want to be with you._

He groaned as Shizuo kissed him back, tasted the rising edge of lust in the way Shizuo demanded better access to his mouth, sought deeper kisses from him. Izaya surrendered immediately, letting Shizuo do whatever he wanted.

They must have kissed a thousand times before, in at least a hundred different ways - light and teasing, angry and bitter, desperate, sweet, uncertain, confident, playful, frightened, all underscored by the same indescribable longing that had drawn them to each other time and time again. Izaya felt that he must know the feel of Shizuo's lips by heart now, must have memorized the taste. But even now, as Shizuo held him down and kissed him for an eternity without stopping, Izaya still felt the same hit of helpless, immediate addiction each time their lips met.

"Shizuo," it felt strange saying words out loud when it was so obvious. "I love you." He tried to push Shizuo on to his back but didn't even get past the first step of getting up himself. Shizuo had him pinned completely to the bed. A sharp jolt of arousal shot through him.

He met Shizuo's eyes, saw that they were hazed over and unfocused with heat. "Shizuo," he said sharply, with the edge of desperation behind it. "If you kiss me like that and you don't fuck me, then I'm seriously going to go crazy."

Shizuo laughed, and pulled Izaya up, settling against the headboard and bringing their bodies so close together that Izaya ended up on top of him. At first, Izaya was so dizzy with the sudden motion that he had no idea what was going on. Then he felt Shizuo's hands on his lower back, pushing his pants down, grabbing and squeezing his ass.

"I'm working on it," Shizuo sounded breathless, and the sound of his words against Izaya's mouth seemed to fill Izaya's throat with heat and steal all the air from his lungs. " _Fuck,_ Izaya, I really need you right now."

Izaya was so far gone that all he could do was moan in answer, clutch desperately at Shizuo's shoulders, grind against his body in an unending mantra of _yes, yes, please, take me, I need you too._

Shizuo barely waited for him to remove the rest of his clothing. As soon as he had his pants pushed down around his knees, Shizuo was pulling him close, fingers spreading him wide open, clumsy with desperation. Izaya wanted to be on Shizuo's skin like a tattoo, wanted to wrap himself around Shizuo and never let go. He was already gasping for breath. The sound filled the room.

The first slide of Shizuo's cock against his entrance made him gasp even louder, make him dig his fingernails hard into Shizuo's skin as a wordless plea for more. But try as he might, in the end, Izaya felt each inch of Shizuo's cock slide into him with agonizing slowness. He watched Shizuo's vision flicker out of focus, felt Shizuo's fingers tremble with the effort of lowering him down gently instead of forcing his hips down. He felt Shizuo's fingers pouring heat into his veins, felt the sensations jolt up his spine like electricity. He couldn't resist grinding in a little deeper, a little harder, chasing after that feeling. Shizuo groaned wildly.

" _Izaya_ ," he sounded as if he were two seconds from coming. " _Fuck_ , you feel -"

At the sound of his voice, Izaya's entire body clenched down on Shizuo's cock. He leaned over Shizuo's shoulder, trying to breathe past the heat that had seized him in a tight grip. All thoughts of fucking slowly had gone out of his head. He was overcome by the desperate urge for _more_ , _now._ "Fuck me," Izaya forced out, even though he could barely form the words in his head. " _Please_."

Shizuo's fingers dug into his skin. Izaya's field of view veered dizzily as Shizuo leaned forward. Gravity pulled them both back onto the bed again, this time with Shizuo on top. The fall knocked all the breath out of Izaya's lungs, so he had no air left to cry out as Shizuo's cock thrust into him, filling him up completely.

The sensation nearly drove Izaya out of his mind. Warmth filled his entire body, carried along by a shiver that ran from his toes to the top of his head. He convulsed as if he had been speared through. When he came back to his senses, there was an arm around his shoulders, supporting him, keeping him close as Shizuo fucked into him. He pressed kisses into the side of Shizuo's face, ran his fingers through yellow hair, damp with sweat. He wrapped his legs around Shizuo's waist, wrapped his arms around Shizuo's neck, and just tried to hold on for dear life. Shizuo was solid and heavy between his legs, filling him up with unbearable friction until he could no longer tell the difference between pleasure and pain.

"I love you," Izaya said, a bit experimentally, and was rewarded with the sensation of Shizuo shuddering against him. His back arched in pleasure as Shizuo drove his hips into him harder. He couldn't get enough of that reaction, so he repeated, over and over again, everything that he had been saying with his body. "I love you, you feel so good, Shizuo. _Fuck_."

A savage pleasure seized him as Shizuo grabbed him and kissed him, never even slowing down the pace of his thrusts. Once Izaya started talking, he couldn't stop. "We should do this all the time, Shizuo. Who says you need to work? Just hold me down and fuck me all day, and surely the yakuza will never find us then."

Shizuo laughed before he could stop himself, and then nipped his teeth hard against Izaya's collarbone. His fingers went to Izaya's nipples, started rubbing and pinching them until Izaya cried out and shut up. "Don't tempt me," Shizuo said, through ragged inhales of heat and held back laughter. "I just might do it."

Izaya tried to speak, but couldn't get the words out. The sharp jolts of pleasure from Shizuo's fingers made it impossible to do anything other than moan. He resorted to begging wordlessly, moving his hips against Shizuo's and kissing him with demanding bites, pulling him down with motions that said _please, please, come inside me, I want you, I need you to come, I can't take this anymore._

After an eternity of coaxing, it finally worked. Shizuo pinned him down completely, covering him with his entire body. He thrust into Izaya one final time and buried his face into the side of Izaya's neck as he convulsed and came, spilling his release deep inside of Izaya's body. Izaya let himself be swept into a tidal wave of pleasure, blanking out his thoughts, and came with a gasp of relief. The world whited out, washed away into a blissful nothingness where he floated, in his own personal heaven, for an eternity.

.

After that, Shizuo kissed him until they were both hard again, and they fucked slowly, leisurely, as if they had all the time in the world. Izaya was so sensitive to each minute motion that Shizuo ended up just grinding against him with slow, deliberate circles, until Izaya came again just from the gentle press of Shizuo's hands against his ass, changing the angle of his thrusts. Shizuo kept going, even when Izaya writhed against him and moaned desperately, even for a while after he himself had shuddered into a second release.

For another few minutes, there was nothing but the sound of their breathing. Shizuo kept pressing little kisses under Izaya's neck, and Izaya kept returning little bites on Shizuo's ear. They made a game of it until their sweat had dried and their breathing had returned to normal. Then, Izaya licked along the side of Shizuo's neck, leaving a wet stripe of saliva on his skin, and Shizuo retaliated by pinning him down hard against the bed and fucking him into the mattress.

.

When morning came, Izaya pulled Shizuo close and said blurrily: "Don't leave."

"I won't," Shizuo whispered back and tangled their fingers together. Izaya rewarded him with a kiss, soft and gentle and sweet.

The sun rose higher in the sky, but they were too deeply asleep to notice, their limbs tangled together on the bed, and their hands linked together in a promise.


	10. Epilogue

Leaning against the front entrance to the hotel, Izaya was grateful for his dark jacket. Shrugging it on had felt like coming back to himself, like a final confirmation that yes, he was really free and back where he belonged.

He had been cautious about reaching out to his old contacts. Most of them would never have sided with him over the yakuza. It was best if they all still thought that he had disappeared.

Some, however, had nothing whatsoever to do with the yakuza.

Nebula hadn't been the only powerful existence that had existed in Ikebukuro, hidden and completely out of sight. There was another, an urban legend, that had crossed two seas to get here.

That urban legend was now coming up the street on her black motorcycle, wearing a biker's helmet, cloaked from head to toe in shadows. This was Celty Sturluson, dullahan, the immortal Valkyrie of Irish lore. This was the creature who had given Izaya the vital information that Ruri Hijiribe had been part-dhampyr, and that Haruna Niekawa wielded a parasitic demon blade.

The yakuza had been looking for her for over a decade, asking all of their information brokers, pulling all the strings they could. But she was the love of Shinra Kishitani's life, and therefore a secret that Izaya would never sell.

Celty came up to him and stopped, letting her motorcycle idle as she fished behind her for her phone.

 _I have your stuff with me_ , her screen said.

"Excellent," Izaya said cheerily. He had always enjoyed hiring Celty for various jobs, treating her like a courier just like any other human. Celty still hadn't decided whether his nonchalant attitude toward her was refreshing or irritating. "And my sisters? Still alive, unfortunately?"

Celty paused to type on her PDA again. _Yes,_ it said. _They asked me to tell you to stay away for a while longer. They like having the house to themselves._

"Well, they might get their wish after all." Izaya took the other thing Celty offered - a backpack full of spare phones and backup computers.

He felt whole after receiving all of his gadgets again. He had started to feel lost and blind without them. The yakuza had burned and destroyed everything they had found in his apartment, but data was a wonderful thing - it could be moved around and backed up with just a moment's notice.

 _If you don't need anything else,_ Celty typed rapidly. _I'll be heading back now. I don't feel safe leaving Shinra's side with all this unrest going on in the city._

"So _cold_ , Celty!" Izaya considered telling her about the insanity of the last few days. He wondered if she would be grateful that he had kept her secret.

 _She'll find out later_ , he decided. Through Shinra or the internet or somebody that she trusted. Then, he would be able to call in _all_ the favors he wanted.

He dug out a phone from his backpack, and quickly entered a number into it. "Here," he said, tossing it to Celty. "Give that to my sisters, and tell them the usual - don't set the house on fire, don't kill anybody unless they can get away with it, that sort of thing. I don't want to have to come back here for at least another two years."

Celty fumbled the phone a little in shock. _You're actually leaving?_

Izaya couldn't help but smile.

He thought of Shizuo waiting for him upstairs, browsing temporary job requests in the cities that they wanted to visit.

Shizuo hadn't been satisfied with just being a bodyguard. He still wanted _some_ kind of working-class skill, even if it was something like bartending.

Celty couldn't exactly stare, but the shadows around her were curling and uncurling in startled confusion. She regarded Izaya as if he had been replaced by someone she didn't know. Izaya shook his head to snap out of it.

"Take care of my sisters," he said as he turned to leave. "If they die, I'll sell you to the highest bidder."

Her shadows stopped writhing in confusion and instead snapped into hostile spikes. But at this point, it was more like banter than a threat, with no real teeth behind it. She shrugged, somehow accepting his threat and dismissing it at the same time. When she sped off on her motorbike, the sound of its tires skidded up into the night air.

.

"I'm done with this city," Izaya announced as he came back into the hotel room. "My sisters have grown up into proper troublemakers, all my friends have moved on without me, and the yakuza here has apparently put a bounty on my head. I think it's high time to -"

Shizuo greeted him at the door with hands pinning his hips against the wall and a searing kiss, cutting off the rest of his words. His hands were frantic against Izaya's skin, finding their way quickly underneath his shirt. They stroked up his sides, pushing up the fabric of his shirt. They trailed down his back, possessive, taking, with the particular brand of arrogance that came with knowing that the body it touched belonged to him, completely, and without reservation.

Izaya instantly went weak, ready to offer anything Shizuo demanded from him, dizzy just from the way Shizuo held him. When they separated, Izaya had completely forgotten the rest of his sentence.

"Guess what?" Shizuo asked, in between the frantic, heated motions of undressing the both of them. Izaya was too dizzy trying to catch his breath, too distracted by the sensation of Shizuo's hands against his skin, too busy undoing the buttons on Shizuo's clothes. Shizuo didn't wait for him to answer. "I passed a phone interview. They want me to come in tomorrow. It's at a bar in Hagane, right in the city center. I know you like cities, and the rent around that area is pretty cheap. What do you think? If this works out - "

Izaya cut him off, rather unintentionally, by sinking down to his knees and taking the entirety of Shizuo's cock into his mouth, feeling it hit the back of his throat, and pressing in harder. The sound of Shizuo's voice broke into a gasp above him. They both crashed into the door, only this time with Izaya's hands around Shizuo's hips, and Shizuo curling up with helpless arousal. Izaya could feel him shaking with it, barely able to stay on his feet. It was as if he had been nailed to the door by the press of Izaya's mouth, but he cried out in agonized pleasure instead of pain. Izaya held him there for as long as he could. Finally, he was forced to pull away, gasping for breath.

"I've heard of Hagane," he said conversationally, even though his lungs burned with the lack of air. "It sounds like a great place."

Shizuo was a barely coherent mess, shuddering over the way Izaya's mouth went back to work around him. Izaya reveled in the sounds that he could draw out of Shizuo, the way he could get Shizuo to react to a simple swipe of his tongue, a slight press of his lips. Usually, Shizuo dictated the pace when they had sex, simply due to the nature of his overwhelming strength and Izaya's utter lack of resistance to it. This was the best position he'd ever gotten, the first time that Izaya had Shizuo completely under his control.

"Does it feel good?" He pulled back and asked, giving Shizuo a sly smile from his position on the floor, knowing that his cheeks must have been flushed red, knowing how it must look.

Shizuo wound a hand into his hair. Izaya felt the shudder go through his entire body as Shizuo fought to remain in control.

Izaya went back to work, intent on destroying any semblance of control that Shizuo thought he had. He knew it was reckless, but he couldn't stop, not when Shizuo kept making those delightful sounds over him, helpless and increasingly desperate.

In the end, the back of his mouth filled with the scent of something warm and musky. Izaya pressed forward even harder, wanting to devour the person in front of him, wanting more. Shizuo shuddered above him, looking debauched and utterly _wrecked_. As Izaya looked up and swallowed, he couldn't help but grin with total satisfaction at the scene he had caused.

"Whatever do we do now?" He asked, faking concern. "It seems like I've defeated the great Shizuo Heiwajima after all."

Shizuo had seemed to be considering sliding down to the ground in a boneless heap, but at Izaya's words, he dug in his heels and stayed upright.

Still gasping for breath, he tightened his grip in Izaya's hair, not letting him get away.

"I'll count that as my first win," Izaya said, a little too satisfied with the way Shizuo looked right now.

Instead of saying anything in reply, Shizuo simply picked him up and carried him over to the bed, even though he should have been blind and unsteady with the amount of heat that Izaya could feel coming off of his skin. The crashed hard onto the bed, knocking all the air out of Izaya's lungs. He supposed that he deserved that.

"Are you okay?" Izaya teased, running his hands through Shizuo's hair, forcing himself to sound normal even though his heart was hammering in his chest. "Need a breather?"

Shizuo still didn't answer. He just pressed Izaya hard into the bedsheets, making the message abundantly clear. _Stay here. And don't move._

When he got back up, stumbling a little, he rifled through the drawers. Within moments, he came back, holding a bottle of lube that he had purchased at the store. Izaya was trembling so much from anticipation that he was surprised when his next words came out without stuttering.

"Are you sure you're up for this, Shizuo?" It was starting to get a little strange, talking to someone who didn't talk back. Shizuo must have been more winded than he thought. Or, he was just concentrating on something else. Izaya had not considered what it would be like to have Shizuo, drunk with a post-orgasm haze, working fingers into him without his usual desperate rush of heat. With a little shudder, Izaya felt a sudden premonition that he might have started something a little dangerous.

"Spread your legs," Shizuo commanded, his voice rough and irresistible. Izaya obeyed instantly. A rush of heat filled his head and nearly blinded him.

"Go easy on me," Izaya said, and then stopped short at the tremor he heard in his voice. When had it come to _him_ begging? Where had his control gone? He cleared his throat as Shizuo approached and knelt over him, and tried again, low and sultry, "You want me? Come over here and -"

Shizuo thrust one finger inside of him, slick with lube and sending a jolt through Izaya's entire body. Izaya nearly curved off of the bed, biting back a yell. " _Easy,_ I said. Holy _shit,_ Shizuo. What happened to being gentle?"

Shizuo grinned over him, teasing, dangerously so. "Just relax," he said, and then pressed a gentle, tender kiss against Izaya's temple, at complete odds with the way he had grinned earlier. "I'll go slow."

.

He did go slow, and Izaya went gradually from surprised comfort to blissful warmth to mindless arousal.

Shizuo held open Izaya's legs with his knees, pressed him down with a hand on his chest, and thrust his fingers into Izaya's body. They sent flickers of heat racing up his spine until Izaya could feel endorphins pulsing through his veins instead of oxygen, drowning him in pleasure.

With a jolt of alarm, Izaya realized that Shizuo intended to keep doing this, perhaps indefinitely. All of his encouraging moans and suggestive motions just seemed to amuse Shizuo, and he somehow managed to resist all the best temptations that Izaya had to offer. His suggestions weren't being rejected, just ignored in favor of Shizuo's own game, this gentle, slow slide of his fingers against Izaya's inner walls, and this rising tide of arousal Izaya felt with no end in sight.

The heat destroyed him, stripped away his thoughts and replaced them with mindless desire. He was coaxed to the brink of orgasm, until he was thrashing with the desire for more friction, almost sobbing for release. He tried to drag his fingers across Shizuo's skin, to bring him down against his body, but Shizuo never relented, and kept up his slow, torturous pace, working his fingers in and out of Izaya with even, deliberate motions.

" _Please_ ," Izaya begged, done with pride, done with any pretense of it. His chest seized with heat, and he could feel his body throbbing with desire, resonating with Shizuo's movements. " _Please, Shizuo. I can't. I can't handle it. I can't do this. Please, please, let me -_ "

Shizuo pressed his forehead against Izaya's, but didn't smother the words with a kiss. He let Izaya keep talking, relishing in his gasps and incoherent pleas, almost as if enjoying the taste of Izaya's desperation. Izaya tried to communicate through forceful kisses, lunging up and biting at Shizuo's lip, begging him for release.

Shizuo gave in briefly, pinning the entirety of Izaya's body against the bed, answering him with ravishing kisses. But at the last moment, right when Izaya's head had gone back in a final blaze of heat, Shizuo pulled away.

Izaya's frustrated wail rang in the air and echoed off the walls. " _Shizuo,_ " he sounded _wrecked_ , but he didn't care anymore. He _needed_ just that final push, just one more touch -

Shizuo was on top of him in an instant, as if he had been holding himself back the entire time. Izaya felt every thread of the bedsheets underneath him pressing into his back, as he gasped wordlessly over the sudden overwhelming too-much sensation of Shizuo's cock driving into him, filling the space where his fingers had been.

" _Fuck_ ," Shizuo gasped as if he had only just discovered this kind of pleasure, the perfect way they fit together. For a moment, there was no rhythm to his movements, just the urge to press in as tightly as possible. He pressed all of his weight down on Izaya. " _Fuck,_ you feel so good."

Izaya tried to carve red lines onto Shizuo's skin with his fingernails, tried to bite marks into the skin on his shoulder, tried to pull all of Shizuo's body into his. He felt himself falling apart under the onslaught of sensations, under the inexorable force of Shizuo's hands on him, and his cock inside him. He pressed hard against the bed, bracing for the next thrust.

Shizuo kissed him, demanding surrender with the press of his lips and his tongue, taking away all the air from Izaya's lungs and the last of his resistance.

Izaya's entire body curved off of the bed in a single arc of unending pleasure. He could feel every jerk of his cock run up against Shizuo's body, could feel every twitch of Shizuo's cock inside him. For a long time, they pressed their pleasure into each other and went mad with possessive satisfaction.

.

"I'm pretty sure this is a draw," Shizuo said, pressing a kiss into Izaya's shoulder. He laughed when Izaya didn't respond.

Izaya felt too weak to argue. He was still trembling from pleasure, from the little aftershocks of what had just happened.

Eventually, Shizuo picked him up and carried him into a bathtub full of warm water. Izaya instantly relaxed into the blissful heat surrounding him. For a long while, he didn't know if he was asleep or awake, dreaming about being wrapped up in Shizuo's embrace, soothed by gentle hands and soft kisses. He woke up a little when the sound of the water stopped, and found himself leaning back against Shizuo.

They shared a wry smile as Shizuo checked for injuries and found none, and Izaya kissed him on the cheek to say that he was okay, that he had liked it. The trembling went away slowly.

"What did I do to deserve you?" Izaya whispered, and Shizuo bit down gently on the shell of his ear to tell him that it didn't matter, and to stop thinking about it.

By the time they got out and dried off, it was almost an hour later. Shizuo tugged him over to the bed, settled both of them into a comfortable position, and fell asleep almost instantly.

He felt the places where they touched, Shizuo's legs pressing against his, his shoulders against Shizuo's chest, and Shizuo's arms making bands of warm restraints around his hip and his chest. For a long time, Izaya just lost himself in the simple pleasure of that contact of skin against skin.

 _One day,_ he decided, _I'll make it up to him. For the two years he lost, I'll give him a lifetime of anything he wants in exchange._

 _Or more than a lifetime_. That thought flitted by but was gone before he could remember it.

The window of the hotel room was wide open, letting in the soft moonlight and bright city lights. Shizuo was a warm and steady presence, holding him in his arms, gently dragging Izaya into a deep sleep alongside him. Izaya let himself give in to those deep, even breaths, the inexorable calm that washed over him. He closed his eyes. The last thing he heard was the sound of the city - the low murmur of voices as people walked in the streets, the rush of cars, the flutter of wings as birds took off into the night sky.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading!
> 
> \- If you want a better prison escape arc, read the first few chapters of The God Eaters by Jesse Hajicek. Two male leads, super effing hot.
> 
> \- This story was originally meant to be much darker - basically Shizuo as Sungho and Izaya as Dohyun from the Warehouse Korean webcomic. 
> 
> About the name - To Kill Your Darlings:
> 
> I guess another meaning for 'to kill your darlings' is 'to hurt the one you love the most', and this story is mostly about that - how being in love doesn't necessarily mean you'll never hurt them. I was writing this during a time when I felt super emotionally fragile and read a lot of things as rejection even though that wasn't necessarily the case. So I guess that's why I wanted to write about this. So, anyway, in this fic, we have:
> 
> 1) Shizuo wanting to touch Izaya, despite physically hurting him as a result, and his deep-seated fear that eventually he'll end up killing Izaya accidentally. (This dynamic, btw, is probably why I FUCKING LOVE SHIZAYA)  
> 2) Izaya 'killing' Shizuo by putting him in prison, only to put him on Nebula's radar.  
> 3) Them killing each other emotionally with harsh words and lies - Shizuo's harsh words make Izaya feel like he's become a ghost, emotionless and numb.  
> 4) And there's Kine coming to kill Izaya, this kid who he considers his protege, deciding that if he can't make Izaya do what he wants, he'll have to kill his darling. (Sorry if that's super creepy, Kine in the canon is an absolute deadpan wondermuffin)  
> 5) And of course, Izaya actually killing Kine, who he considered his mentor until the internal reveal that Kine was responsible for 'killing' Shizuo.
> 
> The real answer is, uh, I had a lot of trouble coming up with the name when I was drafting this. The entire time, in my head, I was just calling it the Shizaya Warehouse AU. Then I was on Youtube and saw the Kill Your Darlings movie trailer where Daniel Radcliff's character kisses that blonde guy, and I thought it was super hot, so, I thought - hey, I can totally shoehorn this title in for my fic and make it meaningful. :D Let's do that.


End file.
